


Liminal Spaces

by dustofwarfare, largepizza, ohmyfae



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Assassins, Canon-Typical Violence, Hints of Organized Crime, M/M, Magical Realism, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:55:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27351568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustofwarfare/pseuds/dustofwarfare, https://archiveofourown.org/users/largepizza/pseuds/largepizza, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: Felix agrees to drive Dimitri home to Fhirdiad for his uncle Rufus' funeral. On the way, they're targeted by assassins and forced to go on the run with no money, a stolen car, and a lifetime of unspoken feelings between them. Desperate to return to Fhirdiad and expose the real villain behind a host of atrocities against Dimitri and Felix's family, they'll take refuge in weird roadside attractions ranging from themed hotel suites, strange museums with possibly haunted toys, bars that are clearly fronts for the mob and a carnival that always seems to show up right when they need it.Dimilix Big Bang collaboration written by Dustofwarfare and Ohmyfae, with amazing art by Largepizza!
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 54
Kudos: 157
Collections: Dimilix Big Bang, dimilix





	1. Sothis' Peanut Gallery

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so, so much to [Finley ](https://twitter.com/wifesimulator) for their amazing art for this fic! We are so thrilled to have the most amazing illustrations EVER, and this whole project was just a joy to do.
> 
> Also thank you so much to Mxticketyboo for beta'ing this for us!!

“Ten dollars worth of gas, please.”

Dimitri Blaiddyd sways slightly, caught between a display of cassette tapes that haven’t been replaced in at least twenty years and a cardboard cutout of a pegasus advertising cigarettes. The man at the gas station counter gives him a curious look and presses a button on the register. Dimitri coughs dust from his lungs and pushes three bags of trail mix and a case of water across the counter.

“Uh.” The attendant glances at the bruise blooming on Dimitri’s forehead. “Planning a trip, huh?”

Dimitri slides his fingers under the strap of his eyepatch. They come away flaked with dried blood. The heater rattles above him, gently stirring his disheveled hair, and he can’t tell if the ringing that winds through the gas station comes from the vent or from his ears.

“Yes,” Dimitri says.

Outside, he can just see Felix Fraldarius, heir to one of the most lucrative home security corporations in Faerghus, wipe blood off his hoodie and light a cigarette. He’s crouched in the open door of their rental car, the one Dimitri woke up in, with Felix dead-eyed and bloody in the driver’s seat, cursing under his breath. Smoke billows in the cold, dry air, and a woman wails mournfully on the radio. Her voice is tinny and twanging, echoing over the empty gas station lot.

“You doin’ okay?” the attendant asks. “It’s just. You look kind of beat up.”

Dimitri stares at him. He can still see the car veering out from under a billboard ahead of them, roaring down the wrong side of the road. Felix cursing and spinning the wheel of his new car. The jolt of impact. Felix’s hands on his shirt, dragging him across the asphalt. Blood on his fingers.

“Yes,” Dimitri says. He takes his bag of supplies and attempts a smile. In the car, Felix takes another drag. “Yes, I’m doing just fine.”

“We got bandages in the back,” the attendant says. “For your, uh.” He gestures to his eye, and Dimitri attempts a smile.

“Oh, no,” he says, as Felix flicks ash onto the asphalt. “Different accident.”

He takes his bags to the car, and Felix groans slightly, stubbing his cigarette on the side of the car door. “Felix. Really. I thought you said that was a rental.”

“What.”

“A rental,” Dimitri says. Felix’s black hoodie has a damp patch on the front, sticking to his chest, and he looks up at Dimitri through shadowed, deep-set eyes. “You said you called a rental. At the accident.”

“Oh.” Felix grinds the cigarette in a little deeper, then brushes it off. “Yeah. You get more of the—“ He shakes his box of cloves, and Dimitri sighs and throws his bags in the backseat.

“You know they’re terrible for your health,” he says.

“Yeah, well, so are you.” Felix swings his legs back inside the car. The woman on the radio croons into bursts of static, and Felix glances up sharply as a black truck goes roaring down the long, empty highway. He freezes, his entire body still as stone, until the last of the truck exhaust dissipates into the pale sky. “We should get going. Check your phone again.”

“It won’t do any good,” Dimitri says. His phone’s a wreck, just crushed glass and the remains of a plain blue case, but he tries to press the home button anyways. “No luck, Felix.”

Felix just grunts. His own phone, so far as Dimitri can tell, was too shattered to bother retrieving. Which means there’s no way to reach anyone back in Fhirdiad, where what’s left of Dimitri’s friends are waiting for the last Blaiddyd to come home just so he can see his uncle interred in the plot behind their house.

With everyone else, it seems.

Felix grips the wheel tight as they pull out of the gas station. Dust billows along the side of the road, filtering through iron grass and graying scrubland, and the static on the radio sputters and hisses until there’s just the sound of a violin, a guitar, someone’s boot stamping on the studio room floor. Dimitri uncaps a water bottle, and it jumps as they rocket over a pothole, sloshing water over them both.

“I’m so sorry,” Dimitri says, fumbling to open the glove compartment.

“It’s fine,” Felix says.

“But it’s a rental—“

“I said it’s _fine._ ”

They sit in silence for a moment, listening to a low voice drawl about killing a man under the high noon sun, before Felix glares at the radio and turns it off. For a rental, the car is remarkably old—The radio turns on a tab Felix has to wrench back and forth, and the windows have to be operated by a handle. Dimitri slips his fingers through the gap in the window and feels the wind slide past them.

“How are.” Felix clears his throat. “Are you going to freak out on me.”

“What?”

Felix looks pained. “I know you’re... Not good with cars.”

“And I’m grateful, Felix, I know you didn’t have to drive me all the way to Fhirdiad—“

“So are you going to freak out on me.” Felix’s voice is short, sharp, like an axe slamming into the side of a tree. “Because. Because of the accident.”

“Oh.” Dimitri takes a draught of what remains of his water. “I don’t think so. It was very sudden, and I don’t recall much. I was… aware,” he says, in a soft voice, “the first time.”

Besides, it was never the impact of the first accident, so long ago, that haunts him now. It was what came after.

“At least we all survived,” he says, forcing his voice to remain level. “You _did_ get the information from the other driver, though? When I was out?”

“Yeah,” Felix says. He digs for a cigarette one-handed, spills most of it on the floor, curses, and jams his thumb on the cigarette lighter. “Yeah, Dimitri. I got his number and everything.”

“And you,” Dimitri says, in a quieter tone. “Are you alright?”

Felix grinds his jaw, and the car rattles as it surges down the highway. Dimitri sighs and settles in his seat, tipping his head slightly so he can see out the window with his good eye. He watches the fields flash by, rows of tobacco and corn, wheat and cotton, empty fields with weeds growing in the ruts. Rotting hay bales sit lonely in the distance, and every now and then, a small auto shop or roadside stand flickers by.

A massive sign rises over the trees on the horizon. _SEIROS IS WATCHING,_ it says, in blocky white letters. _WHERE WILL YOU BE WHEN THE GODDESS CALLS?_ Underneath it, an adult store promises girls, girls, and possibly, if you ask nicely, girls. Felix doesn’t seem to notice. He keeps his hands tight on the wheel, his chin raised, thin strands of dark hair falling over his angular face.

“Do you remember,” Dimitri says, softly, a hunter trying not to startle a deer in the dark, “when we were young, and your mother used to drive us to the roadside stand in Fraldarius? The one with the candied lemons?”

Felix lets out a heavy sigh. “No.”

“You’d eat them all at once, and there was that time we got the strawberry candy, the foul ones that melt, you know, and we found them in the tree house a few months later and got sick on them?”

Felix’s brow furrows slightly. He pinches his lips tight, gaze fixed on the horizon.

“And then, of course, your father said—“

“Saints, Dimitri.” Felix slaps his hands on the steering wheel. At his feet, what cigarettes he hasn’t managed to scoop up roll along the mat, gathering dust. “Do you want a fucking candy lemon or don’t you?”

Dimitri looks at him sidelong. “They might have a phone, at least.”

Felix snarls. He wheels the car around, breaking several traffic laws at once, and takes off back towards the last roadside stand. Dimitri leans forward to turn the radio back on, and the haunting note of a fiddle twists into the whistle of the wind and the wheeze of the air conditioner, high and lonely.

***

Sothis’s Peanut Gallery is, despite all the reasons it shouldn’t be, a real place.

It’s the sort of establishment with a playground outside, swings with rusted chains and green plastic slides vaguely shaped like dragons, the bottom spilling out into thin mulch spread over hard concrete. The only people there are one bewildered, dirty child in a diaper, sobbing quietly while his disinterested parents ignore him in favor of smoking and checking their phone.

 _No pets_ , a sign says.

Felix parks in a spot farthest from the playground and closest to the exit, half-kicking the door open as he climbs out. His muscles ache, and there’s a terrible buzzing feeling in his head that he brutally ignores in favor of scraping up the last few cigarettes from the dirty floorboard.

Dimitri is frowning at the glovebox. “I don’t. Why would a rental have…” He reaches in and pulls out a set of workman’s gloves, the kind you wear if you work in construction, or landscaping. “Why would this be. Here.”

“Maybe the last person left them,” Felix says, closing his eyes. His head aches. They need -- he doesn’t even know what they need.

To not be here. That much is obvious.

“I’m going to. Use the phone.” Felix glances at him. Dimitri looks...the same way he has, for the last however long it’s been. Shaggy hair, earnest expression, eyepatch that make children stare and their parents look guiltily away, like it’s their fault he has it.

He really thinks the car is a rental. Felix drags in a deep breath, but it hurts. There’s something wrong with his ribs but they don’t have the time to get checked out. He feels a prickle at his neck, turns and stares hard at the parking lot.

Just the child, weeping, crying about the swing. A man getting gas, scrolling through his phone, not bothering to look at anything else. A young woman in sunglasses and a pair of shorts with cowboy boots comes out of the convenience store, muttering to herself, a six pack of beer and a bag of candy clutched in one hand. She glances up; Felix looks away, and waits for her to pass.

Her car has a lot of bumper stickers and starts blaring music immediately. It’s probably a nicer car. Has a better stereo, surely.

But Dimitri would have been horrified, and the car was a compact, too small. And the bumper stickers were too recognizable.

Felix pushes into the shop, which is like a normal gas station but glutted with souvenirs; purses with jeweled crosses, giant stuffed animals with exaggerated eyes, sweatshirts with clever sayings, trinkets for truckers to pick up at the last minute if they forgot a Yule gift for their kids.

Over in the corner is a bushel of oranges, some of which look as if they fell off the tree when Felix was eleven, and a barrel of boiled peanuts, which he actually likes. He goes over and examines them, raising his eyebrows at a sign that says, plainly, _baby alligator not for sale_.

Under it, in a dirty, finger-smudged aquarium, is a small, tiny alligator.

Felix stares at it. The creature is under what he supposes is a sunlamp, on a rock. There are dead crickets and a candy wrapper and a penny in its habitat. It doesn’t seem to care, even though it’s not supposed to be there. Felix stares at it and feels panic rising, the thought of being trapped somewhere, forced to live under a false light, behind dirty glass in a home filled with careless trash.

He turns away. If that thing had been for sale, he would have bought it. He wants to steal it so badly his fingers curl, but he shoves some peanuts into a bag and heads toward the phone in the back, near the restrooms.

It takes quarters. Felix shifts his bag of boiled peanuts onto the top of the pay phone; he shoves his hands in his pockets to no avail. Cursing, he leaves the bag there and stomps outside.

Dimitri is opening the trunk, frowning. “Felix, there's -- a bag, in here.”

“Good, are there any quarters?” He pushes Dimitri and grabs the bag, but the only thing in there is a pair of smelly workout pants and one tennis shoe. Great.

“Felix --“

“Not now,” Felix snaps, tense, and his stomach hurts, he wants to shower, he wants to go back in time to before the fucking accident, that truck that slammed into his new car while he sat there, trying not to think about Dimitri, how good he smelled, how big his hands --

“Felix,” Dimitri says, softly. That’s what gets him, like always. Dimitri’s softness, gentle when he could be something else. Harder, broken like the shattered thing that was Felix’s sleek new car, lying in pieces at the side of the highway.

“I need a quarter,” Felix says, and holds out his hand. He makes himself meet Dimitri’s eye, breathes slowly out of his nose, like he tried to do in the yoga classes Annette dragged him to in college. It doesn’t help. Nothing ever does, with Dimitri.

“I don’t,” Dimitri says, blinking at him. “I don’t think I. Hold on, let me just --“

Felix grumbles and pushes past him, goes to crawl into the car. His head is throbbing, his stomach sick in a way that says he needs food, water, both. Dimitri shouldn’t -- he shouldn’t smell so good. Not after --

_Glass shattering, the way the car flew across the road, spinning out, Dimitri shouting, Felix grabbing the wheel thinking no, no, no no no no not this not now not -- and the car that pulled up once Felix’s came to a shuddering screeching halt, the man who --_

There’s nary a quarter in the car. A dime is wedged in the sticky, gross console between the seats but that’s all. No amount of scrounging comes up with anything.

“I’m sure they’d let you use the phone, Felix,” says Dimitri, watching him with a wide eye. His shoulders are hunched, his hands in his pockets. He’s trying to be smaller, make himself...not invisible, but harmless. “If you just explained about the - the accident.”

Felix wants to tell him. About the man who’d strolled, smirking, over toward the ruined mess of his car. But he doesn’t. “I’ll be right back.”

He goes back inside, and pulls out his wallet. No cash, but there’s an ATM. He doesn’t want to do this, it’s the last thing he wants, but he shoves his card in and pushes his pin number before he can talk himself out of it.

There’s some terrible tinny song playing over the radio, inane vocals, up-tempo. Felix grabs his cash and selects _no_ on his receipt, then decides he might as well get supplies. He buys water, some bandages, rubbing alcohol, and aspirin.

The boiled peanuts he’d shoved on top of the phone are gone. It’s anyone’s guess if they were just returned to the barrel or not, but he gets some more, and at the last second, finds the lemon drops Dimitri liked so much hanging on a rack near the cashier.

It makes him think about summer days, lazy and hot, when he was small and thought the world was a good, happy place where nothing went wrong.

There’s a television mounted on the corner of the wall. On it, there’s footage of a car accident. Felix goes cold, staring. The sound is muted, but he can read the captions.

_Car accident -- presumed dead -- body found in --_

Felix shoves everything up on the counter, barely pays attention to the cashier and gruffly asks for some quarters. When he sees Dimitri walk inside, he shoves a few dollars into his hand and says, “Find some, some food. Snacks. Wait for me outside.”

Dimitri’s eyes go to the bag, like he can see the medical supplies. “What’s -- something’s wrong.”

Felix almost laughs. “Just. Dimitri.” His name feels thick, strange, on Felix’s tongue. “Please.” So, too, does that.

“All right,” Dimitri says. “All right.”

“Get me some more smokes, and a lighter,” Felix calls, then goes to the phone. His fingers shake as he puts in the money, presses the button. His heart starts to race, making him dizzy and sick.

“Hello?”

The voice on the other end makes him only slightly less nauseous.

“Felix? Felix, if that’s you --”

“Yeah,” Felix says. “Hi, Dad.” He presses the phone to his ear, breath shaky and strange. “I. We’re. It’s. We’re fine.”

“Oh, thank Sothis,” his father breathes, voice breaking. “Felix, they -- they said --”

“I know, Dad,” Felix says. He almost drops the phone. He wants to throw up. The lights are too bright, harsh like fluorescents always are. His head pounds. He wishes he were back at school, anywhere else. Wishes so many things were different. Fuck. “It’s -- we need. We’re --”

“Yes, where -- Felix, are you and Dimitri all right? They’re saying -- they’re saying it was an accident.”

He imagines for half a second what Rodrigue must have thought. Another accident, another phone call. Someone who wasn’t his son on the other end of the line. “We’re fine. We’re both just. A little shaken up.”

“Where are you?” Rodrigue demands.

Felix tells him. His eyes won’t focus, they’re darting around at everything, looking for—he doesn’t know. They land on the alligator again. It’s sitting there, trapped, waiting. Waiting for what? It can’t go home. It’s just here, trapped behind glass, far from where it should be.

Waiting to die.

“I’ll send someone for you,” Rodrigue says. “Cornelia has family near there, she’ll --”

Felix slams the phone down. He grabs the bag and marches through the store, finds Dimitri near the exit, looking at a map. “Come on,” Felix says, and grabs him. “We have to. Have to go.”

“Oh, well I thought -- since we don’t have a --“

“Just take it,” the bored cashier says. “You two are weird. Go.”

“Felix, really,” Dimitri says, as they go toward the car. “I don’t know what’s going on but you’re acting strangely, I -- are you hurt? I did get you some snacks.” He gestures toward a bag, there’s more there than his spare change could have paid for.

“What did you -- never mind,” Felix snaps. He grabs a bottle of water, some spicy jerky, and his smokes. His fingers are shaking harder. Any second now. They’ll be here any second.

“Where are we going?” Dimitri asks, as Felix jams the key in, turns the engine over. “You’re acting so strange, Felix, did you get ahold of your father?”

Felix doesn’t answer, just slams his foot down on the gas and hits the road. They can’t stay here. They can’t stay, they can’t use their credit cards, and they can’t call anyone. And Dimitri doesn’t even know why.

He doesn’t know about the man with the gun. He doesn’t know that Felix stopped him from being murdered. Years of tension and grief and a thousand unspoken words between them, and this is where they are. Some boiled peanuts, eleven dollars and eighty-five cents in cash, shitty cheap off-brand Band-Aids and a stolen car between them.

“Where are we going?” Dimitri asks him, buckling his seat belt.

Felix has no idea. “Somewhere else,” he says, and lights a cigarette. “Somewhere not here.”

***

 _Not here_ takes them thirty miles north to Charon, on a winding stretch of road that weaves through two tolls and across a rusted, ancient bridge, which looks out over a river patched with algae. There’s a man sitting on the muddy bank next to a canoe, his black, wide-brimmed hat flopping over his face, and he looks up as the rental car rattles over the bridge. He raises a hand—Dimitri unconsciously waves back as they bump and jostle over the dirt road on the other side.

Charon isn’t a ghost town, exactly. Not yet. There are still logging camps on the outskirts, the shadow of suburbs in the east, a strip of quaint shops and thrift stores that make up the downtown plaza. Still, everything about it seems haphazard and temporary, as though the people who built it never meant to settle down and had to construct it piece by piece. Even the lights of a carnival on the edge of town seem vaguely unreal, glowing like a fire out of the corner of his eye.

“Really sick of being behind a fucking wheel right now,” Felix says, as they pull out of an empty drive thru. Dimitri grimaces. If he had his license, none of this would have happened. He could have driven _himself_ home. Felix could have stayed at university, quietly pretending Dimitri didn’t exist, and Dimitri could have…

Could have probably died on an empty stretch of road, knocked out in a wrecked and smoldering car, with no one but the poor soul in the other vehicle to drag him to safety.

Dimitri sucks in a sharp breath and tries not to think of the way asphalt feels under his knees. The stench of a car leaking fluids into the ditch. Glass cutting into his palms. He runs his fingers over the thin, pale scars on his hand, remembers the way blood had welled over them as he scrambled over the wreckage and tried to search for his father’s—As he groped under the car for the lump that was his—

The way his _neck—_

Dimitri cranks open his window.

“Roll that up,” Felix says. The car lurches to a stop under a dimly-lit sign, and he wrenches the keys out of the ignition. “We’re done for the night.”

“Thank you.” Dimitri spills out of the car. The sign above him flickers and hisses, neon lights blinking in and out like a signal flare. _The Wayhouse Hotel._ Felix mutters to himself as he grabs their plastic bags from the back. Dimitri sucks in air, touches the patch over his scarred glass eye, reminds himself that he isn’t fourteen anymore, that this is _Felix_ , here, not Glenn’s sightless eyes in a stiffening body, not the remains of his father tumbling out of the front seat. He’s beyond that, now. It’s done.

Felix stops in the violet glow of the sign to stare back at him, and for a moment, his eyes are dark like his brother’s, his shoulders broader, his face that of a ghost.

Dimitri places a hand on the signpost and throws up into a bed of mulch.

“Okay,” Felix says, and his voice, at least, isn’t the same. “Yeah, I. I know you don’t drive, much, so.”

“Not if I can. Help it,” Dimitri pants.

“Do you need me to…” Felix rocks forward, but Dimitri shakes his head—It isn’t Felix’s job to deal with Dimitri’s weakness. He pushes himself up and goes back to the car for one of the water bottles. He uncaps it with shaking fingers and dumps it over his head.

Felix watches him as water trails down his neck and into his ripped and filthy shirt, and Dimitri runs a hand through his hair. Then, without a word, Felix turns on one heel and stalks off towards the front desk.

No one’s there. It’s a self-serve kiosk, an ancient one that apparently works on the trust system in that anyone who shows up after ten has to punch in some buttons on a keypad, promise to not run out on the bill in the morning, and wait for a latch to dump a key into a tray. Felix grabs theirs and lopes for the stairs.

“Brace yourself,” Felix says, when he jams the key into the door.

It swings open.

In the darkness, something skitters. Felix turns on the light, and a massive spider scuttles off a window and into the warped wallpaper. There are hearts painted on the walls, paper ones hanging listlessly from the ceiling, confetti glitter tossed on the dresser. A single bed, also heart-shaped, sits under a fogged mirror that reflects their dirty, bloodstained faces.

“I think we booked the honeymoon suite,” Dimitri says. Felix groans.

Dimitri strips off his shirt as they enter. Their clothes are back with the ruin of Felix’s car, and Dimitri can’t exactly blame him for forgetting—He knows what it’s like in the aftermath of a wreck, the dry-mouthed panic, the roar of blood in his ears. Felix gives Dimitri a wary look as Dimitri steps out of his pants, and Dimitri stops halfway, staring up at him.

“Oh,” he says. “I. Sorry.”

“It’s fine, we both feel like shit,” Felix says. “Not like I haven’t seen you in your boxers before.”

Dimitri smiles, but it’s a weak one, thin and wry. The last time was just before the accident, though, when they were just a couple of fourteen year-olds eating cheese puffs out of a jar and watching low-budget horror movies in Felix’s bedroom. After that, Dimitri hadn’t exactly been… suited, for polite company, and Felix had closed in on himself, watching Dimitri break down on the edges of his life like a stranger in his own skin.

Dimitri kicks off his jeans, and Felix disappears into the shower. The water spits and hisses, and Dimitri climbs onto the bed to the low twang of springs popping. His elbow jams into something hard, and he turns to find a small box with a coin slot attached to the bed, its label too faded to read.

It takes a few moments for Dimitri to fish a quarter out of Felix’s jeans. When he does, he pops it in and jolts as the bed rattles and clanks and starts to vibrate with a low hum that fills the room.

“Oh,” Dimitri says. He laughs, and Felix curses in the shower as something thumps against the wall. Dimitri grabs the headboard behind him and grins as the bed thrums and shakes.

Felix scrambles out of the shower. He’s still damp, water glistening over his lean muscles and angular face, and his open, panicked expression shifts to numb disbelief as he sees Dimitri sprawled on the heart-shaped bed.

“Felix,” Dimitri says. “You _have_ to try this.”

“No,” Felix says, and Dimitri laughs again.

“I want three of these,” he says. “At least. We can put them in the front hall in Fhirdiad and race them. Sylvain would love it, you know he would.”

“Maybe you _did_ get concussed,” Felix mutters, and disappears back into the shower.

He comes out scowling a minute later, glares at the vibrating bed, and grabs Dimitri’s clothes off the floor. “Gonna wash these off in the shower,” he says. “Save on coins, since you’re obviously having fun with them. Apparently there’s a dryer by the ice machines.”

“Oh,” Dimitri says. His voice comes out shaky, humming with the rising vibrations of the bed. “I can do that.”

“Don’t let me ruin your good time,” Felix drawls.

Dimitri does eventually have to get off the bed, which is a shame, really. He takes off his eyepatch—Felix, stripped down to his briefs and eyeing the bed like it’s about to grow teeth and devour him whole, looks away—and leaves his boxers hanging from the door handle as he showers with their clothes. Blood and dirt pools at his feet, and Dimitri scrubs at his hair with complimentary shampoo and ruins two washcloths trying to wipe the grime off his skin.

The bed has stopped rattling by the time he emerges from the bathroom, which is a shame, and Felix is watching TV from under the comforter, an empty fast food wrapper on his knees. He glances up at Dimitri and away, and Dimitri carefully eases onto the other side of the bed. On the screen, a man crawls through an air vent, bloody and grimacing.

 _”Come out to the coast,”_ he says. _”We’ll get together, have a few laughs.”_

“Big fucking mood,” Felix says.

“Maybe.” Dimitri glances at the remote. “Maybe we should watch something else.”

“What? No. It’s a classic,” Felix says. He opens one of the bags from the peanut gallery and rifles through it. “You got… what the hell, I thought they banned these chips when we were like, twelve.”

“Not there, apparently,” Dimitri says, as Felix pulls out a bag of chips with a screaming dragon on the front. Dimitri takes a burger from the fast food bag. “I remember, you were so mad when they were discontinued, you had Glenn drive us all the way to…” He clears his throat. “Ah. Well.”

“It’s fine,” Felix says. “Don’t make it a thing.”

Except it is. It has been for years, this widening gulf between them, the silence that settled in with the absence of Glenn, of Dimitri’s father. Dimitri has been too caught up in the aftermath, sneaking out from under his guardians’ watch to throw himself into warehouse brawls and crowded mosh pits, drowning the ghosts out with violence, with the taste of blood in his teeth. He tried to cover it up, to put on a respectable front, but Felix had followed him, once, had seen him covering his scraped knuckles and hiding bruises in the school bathroom, and that had been it. Dimitri had his way of dealing with it—Felix had his. They didn’t talk about it. Didn’t talk about anything, really, and what they had slowly soured like a fruit off the vine until it took Felix’s father pulling rank just to get Felix to agree to drive Dimitri to Fhirdiad.

And now they’re here, shirtless, eating discontinued chips and greasy burgers while a man screams about detonators on a box TV.

Dimitri looks over at Felix. Felix watches the screen, his face illuminated, eyes flickering with spots of light. Then, slowly, Dimitri leans back and presses a quarter to the slot at the end of the bed.

Felix _squawks._ “The _hell,_ Dimitri!”

“Embrace it, Felix,” Dimitri says, forcing his face to remain deadpan. “The love bed is here for you.”

“What the fuck. No.”

The bed rattles ominously. “F-f-f-e-l-l-i-i-x.”

Felix actually snorts and shoves at Dimitri’s face with one hand. Dimitri falls back on the pillows, and Felix lets out a groan of disgust.

“You know what this is for, don’t you?”

“Relaxation,” Dimitri says, struggling to keep his mouth from twitching. “Of course. You can use it. _I_ can use it. I still think we should race them, you know.”

“How are you like this.” Felix rolls up his bag of chips. “You’re like. Twelve. And also seventy-six. You like smooth jazz unironically and want to race vibrating _sex_ beds.”

“Felix, I’m shocked,” Dimitri says. “Sex beds? This is clearly a massage function.”

Felix blinks at him. “I honestly don’t know if you’re serious or not.” He stares at Dimitri for a moment, his brows lowered, then freezes, a pale blush creeping up his neck. He lurches out of the bed, dragging the bag of supplies with him. It swings over his briefs like a pendulum, heavy with lemon drops and expired chips.

“Gonna do laundry,” Felix says, at last.

The bed, and therefore Dimitri, vibrates gently. “Sure,” Dimitri says. Gunfire flashes on the screen, and Felix flinches, takes a step back, and flees once again for the bathroom.

***

This is such a bad idea.

Felix finds the laundry by the vending area, shoves their clothes into the dryer and cranks the ancient thing up to “high heat.” He leans back against the wall, arms crossed, listening to the clank of the laundry and half-aware he was dressed in nothing but his boxer briefs. Scowling, he kicks the dryer just because and tries to ignore the thought of Dimitri lying on that ridiculous bed, smiling, evening laughing. How long has it been since he’s heard Dimitri Blaiddyd _laugh_?

And Dimitri on that bed, the way he’d looked. Felix thought this -- this stupid _crush_ of his was long dead, buried beneath years of tension and distance and guilt. Dimitri’s guilt, that he’d survived when his father and Felix’s brother had not. Felix’s guilt, that he’d been almost more relieved Dimitri hadn’t died than --

_Stop it. You know how this goes. You went through therapy. You know that you can feel sad about Glenn and Lambert and be glad Dimitri lived. One doesn’t negate the other._

Felix startles as he hears something; a low murmur of voices, footsteps. He presses back against the wall in the little alcove that houses the vending and the laundry, and tells himself he’s being paranoid while listening anyway.

“That’s the car,” a voice says, and Felix goes cold all over. “Drystan’s car.”

“So they’re here,” says a second. “You sure Fraldarius is with him?”

 _Fuck_.

“Cornelia says he made contact with his father, yeah.” A pause. “Gonna beat that little bitch up for what he did to Drystan. Make it hurt real bad before he gets his throat cut.”

Drystan, that’s one of the men who tried to kill Dimitri, then. Maybe not the first one. After the accident, when Felix was blinking glass out of his eyelashes and fighting off nausea, a guy had pulled up behind the wreck in that ancient car, stepped out of it whistling, holding a gas can and a tire iron. He was going to beat them both to death and set them on fire on the side of the road.

He’d stopped to open the door of the other vehicle, sturdy as a tank and barely dented, and asked the man struggling with his seatbelt if there were supposed to be _two of them._ What to do with the spare.

“Just do both of them,” the guy had said. “Cornelia said she wants it done.”

“Right. I’ll do it myself, then.”

Felix had stayed still long enough to hear footsteps by the door, then he’d reacted. He’d been fencing since he was four, and he had pepper spray on his keychain -- a stupid gift from Annette, with a cat face, but the keys were in the ignition and it had been easy enough to blind the guy and get out of the car, grab the tire iron and knock him out.

The trouble was his friend, who was big and loud and furious as a bull, wrenching his way out of the other car. That had been messy. Sloppy. He was still groaning when Felix dropped the tire iron and reached for Dimitri’s seatbelt. And he’d reached for something under his shirt, hadn’t he, and Felix’s hands had clenched around the tire iron, because that was a _gun,_ it had to be a _gun,_ he couldn’t just. He had to.

There’d been a lot more blood, that time. Then Felix dragged Dimitri into the first guy’s car and took off, leaving them both in the dirt.

Objectively it was nowhere near as bad as running a car off the road, beating two people to death, shooting them and then setting them on fire. Someone should explain that to these two.

But at least he knows for sure, now. Cornelia is behind this, and she’s not going to stop until Dimitri is dead and the Blaiddyd fortune is hers.

Felix has an ice bucket and a bag of snacks. These are not weapons, but he at least has the element of surprise on his side. He’s not going to let Dimitri die in a vibrating bed, not after the first time Dimitri laughed around him -- and meant it -- since before the accident. He just needs one little thing, one piece of luck. Bad guys in movies are always stupid. He needs these two to be stupid, also.

“Let’s split up,” says one. “They’re hurt, Cornelia said. Tell him she sent you. They don’t have any idea. Blaiddyd’s not that smart, he’ll let you in.”

“Why’d they run, then?” The other guy says. “If they don’t know.”

“Who the fuck knows? Also, who cares? You do Blaiddyd and this is the last shit job we have to do for -- forever, fuck, just go.”

Felix waits until the footsteps fall away. He puts the snacks in the ice bucket and tags the plastic bag, draws in a breath and waits until the first set of footsteps passes by the alcove.

He has to be fast. He has to take them both out before one of them finds Dimitri. This asshole is wrong about Dimitri; it’s not that he’s stupid, it’s that he’s _loyal_ and even after everything, he wouldn’t expect Cornelia to be trying to kill him. But he’s right that Dimitri will probably let him in.

Felix gets the snack bag over the man’s head and kicks his knees out from under him. His heart is racing and he can’t think past the adrenaline, but he manages to get the guy discombobulated enough to smack his head on the edge of the ancient washing machine until he falls still at Felix’s feet.

Felix grabs the ice bucket -- it’s the only weapon he has, even if it’s plastic -- and goes back toward the room. He can move quietly, and luck is with him enough that he’s able to creep behind the guy and shove him, hard, kicking to get him on the ground.

“What the fuck,” the man shouts, twisting, and Felix knocks him over the head with the ice bucket -- which does approximately nothing. “Did you -- Fraldarius, was that plastic? How the fuck did you live this long?”

“Took your asshole friend out with a plastic bag, fucker,” Felix growls, and waits -- guys like this dude, big and dumb, take one look at Felix and think _easy mark_. He’s five-foot-nine, slim, has long dark hair and people immediately think he’s harmless. They underestimate him, that’s what’s important.

“Gonna slit your throat and then your _friend’s_ , fucker,” the guy mimics. That means he’s got a knife, or he wants Felix to think he does. He reaches for it, but Felix fights dirty and he’s fast, and he kicks the guy with his heel in the nuts. It doesn’t quite pack the punch his boots would, but he knows martial arts and this guy isn’t expecting Felix -- with his half-wet hair loose around his naked shoulders and dressed only in tight black boxer-briefs -- to go on the offensive. It’s literally his only moment of advantage but he exploits it as ruthlessly as he does when it’s a fencing match, because Felix always fights like it’s life or death, even when it’s sport.

No need for a weapon he can grab this asshole and smash his head against the concrete walkway.

Felix finds a knife and a phone, and flips it open -- it’s the cheap kind you get at gas stations, no password, meant to be discarded. He hits the _redial_ button and waits.

“It’s done, then?” A man’s voice, not Cornelia.

“Oh, it’s fucking done,” Felix hisses. He’s shaking, and he knows he needs to get Dimitri and get out of here. “And so are you.” He closes the phone and heads back to the room. His hands are shaking. Dimitri didn’t even lock it.

Felix throws the door open. “We have to go,” he says, standing there disheveled and sweaty, flushed, half-naked and holding a knife, a burner phone that isn’t his, and a plastic ice bucket full of cheap snacks. “Get up. We’ll get our clothes on the way.”

Dimitri stares at him, but all he says is, “I’ll get my shoes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Dimilix Road Trip Mixtape  
> Track One: It Must Be You by Dolly Parton, which is playing on the radio of the “rental car.”


	2. The Abyss

“Felix.”

There aren’t many street lights this side of Charon. They’re paid for by whatever small town committee decides to pull together enough funds for a solitary light over a gas station or a bar, which means that with the headlights flicked off, Felix is practically driving with his eyes closed. He’s just a shadow against the car window, moonlight snaking over his bare chest, which heaves too quickly, too hard, even this far from the hotel.

The hotel where two men lay crumpled on the concrete, shifting slowly as Dimitri and Felix fell into the car.

“Felix,” Dimitri says, again. “Pull over.”

“Right,” Felix says. “Let them come to us. Great idea.”

“Maybe,” Dimitri says, carefully, as though trying to coax a cat out from under the bed, “you should pull over and tell me who they are.”

Felix laughs. They’re still mostly undressed, their damp clothes tossed in the back and their bare legs pasty and pale in the moonlight, and Dimitri tries vainly not to notice how the muscles of Felix’s upper arms tense when he’s scared. Because he is, he thinks, possibly more than Dimitri has ever seen him. Felix glances up—There’s a billboard, another one of those _SEIROS IS WATCHING_ ones with a phone number and a countdown to the end of the world, but it’s half hidden in a cluster of trees and underbrush. Felix jerks the wheel, and they go veering into the darkness under the sign.

Felix cuts the engine.

“So,” Felix says. “I don’t know how to break it to you. Someone else would... Would be nicer about it, but I don’t.”

Dimitri leans back. He doesn’t want to say it—They both know it, anyways, why Felix doesn’t seem to have any middle gears. Why he blurts out the truth like it’s a blunt instrument, why he throws himself into fencing practice and turns off his phone for days. It’s the same reason Dimitri can’t get behind the wheel of a car without having a panic attack. The reason any of this is happening.

“It’s alright,” Dimitri says. “I understand.”

Felix looks at him, then, and says the one thing Dimitri isn’t expecting.

“Cornelia tried to kill you.”

“What?”

“Don’t. Don’t start,” Felix says. It comes out. Bits and pieces of it—Dimitri passed out in his seat, the man with the gasoline and the tire iron, his accomplice in the car that hit them head-on. The men at the hotel. All of them speaking of Cornelia.

Cornelia, who is as much a mother to Dimitri as anyone ever has been. Cornelia, who held him in her arms after his father died, who called him up after his uncle’s accident a week ago, who told him to come home.

Cornelia, listed on his father’s will.

Cornelia, next in line to inherit the stocks of one of the biggest corporations in Faerghus. After Dimitri.

“Uncle Rufus died in an accident,” Dimitri says. He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting here, but he can feel Felix next to him, a tangled web of nervous energy, hands still clenched on the wheel.

“I know,” Felix says.

“Dad. Your brother, they. The car that hit us, it came from the other side of the road—“

“I _know,_ ” Felix says.

Dimitri doesn’t feel cold, not exactly, not when the muggy heat of the shrublands has yet to give way to the chill of Faerghus proper, but he does feel… distant. Detached, like he’s locked somewhere inside himself, trapped with the disparate pieces that have been rattling around in secret all these years. He remembers the heat rising from the asphalt in the wake of the accident, searching for what remained of his father under the car. He could still hear Glenn, gasping somewhere on the other side of the wreckage, but he couldn’t go to him, had to--Had to find his father, find what was missing.

He’ll always remember the way his father’s cheek had felt, when he found him at last.

“Hey.” Felix’s voice is tight. Sharp. “Focus. I said she’s after us. We can’t go back to Fhirdiad; Maybe we can… Your dad was tight with Annette’s family, right? We can hide out there, I can call Dad, get him somewhere safe. We can wait this out.”

“No.” Felix goes still. Dimitri can’t say what his voice sounds like. He can just hear the crickets in the underbrush, Felix’s rough, soft breathing, the seat beneath him creaking ominously. “No, I’m going to Fhirdiad. I’m going to bring this to her.”

“Yeah? And who’s going to bring you there, huh?” Felix slaps the wheel, and the blare of the car horn makes both of them jump. “Fuck. Look. I’m not driving you to the person who wants you dead. Who wants _me_ dead.”

“You don’t have to.”

“You’ll drive yourself? And what, kill her with your bare hands, smack her to death with some shitty gas station energy drinks?”

Dimitri stares out into the dark street. “Maybe. Even just to… get answers. Find out the truth.”

“Yeah, well, fuck you, then,” Felix says.

Dimitri looks at him. His fingers are curled around the wheel, and his jaw is set mulishly, teeth gritted together. “You’ll do it.”

“I said, fuck you.”

“Thank you,” Dimitri says.

Felix groans and wrenches himself away from the wheel. “I’m not dealing with this right now. Right now, I’m going to…” He crawls out of the front seat, accidentally jams his foot into Dimitri’s thigh, and tumbles into the back. “I’m gonna sleep some of this off, and if you snore, I swear to all that is holy I am going to push you out of this car and leave you to the wolves.”

“You fought those men for me,” Dimitri says. Felix makes a low, animalistic sound and flings himself onto the backseat, making the car rock slightly.

“Who says I fought them for you, _boar?_ ”

Dimitri sighs. Felix curls up with his back to the windshield, and Dimitri tries to scoot his own seat far enough to accommodate his legs. Which means he inevitably bumps into Felix, who snarls, and Dimitri spends a restless hour shifting and grunting and wedging himself into increasingly acrobatic positions before Felix slams his fist on the back of the seat.

“Just get back here,” he says.

“But there’s only—“

“You can’t sleep unless you’re hugging a pillow anyways,” Felix says, which is true, but they stopped having sleepovers after the accident—

No. After the _murder._

“Just move,” Felix says. “It’s getting cold, and our clothes aren’t dry yet.”

“Of course,” Dimitri says. “This isn’t for my benefit at all.”

Felix lets out another wordless growl, and Dimitri climbs over the front seat. It takes some maneuvering, at first, but Dimitri finally gets his back to the seat and Felix curled tense at his chest, holding Dimitri’s arms over his shoulders. Felix smells faintly of the hotel room soap, and Dimitri thinks wistfully of the bemusing vibrating bed, the almost-smile hidden behind Felix’s well-crafted facade. Felix’s breathing slowly evens out, and Dimitri runs his thumbs over Felix’s knuckles, feels the scraped skin there.

“Thank you,” Dimitri whispers, into the dark.

The heat wakes him, in the end. Felix is practically stuck to his back, a clammy, snoring gangle of limbs in black briefs, and all he does is mutter and flop to his back when Dimitri peels himself away. He staggers out of the car and drapes their clothes on the sweltering hood, then washes out his mouth with toothpaste and bottled water. Lizards scuttle in the dry grass, and a pair of cardinals chirp at him from the bushes under the billboard, hopping in place in huffy outrage.

“Sorry,” Dimitri says, to the birds. He grimaces.

The road stretches out before them, rising gently over the slight bump of a hill. A truck with a bed full of people rolls by, blasting music, and clouds drift over the pale sky, building into a thunderhead on the horizon. Dimitri sighs and uncaps his water bottle again. They only have eight bottles left, but he sloshes water over his face and tips the bottle on his neck and back. Water slides down his chest, trickling over his stomach, and Dimitri rubs it into his pecs with his bare hands, trying to scrub off some of the grime of the road. He flips his hair back and bundles it up in a knot to give his neck room to breathe.

He’s just stepping into his warm, slightly steaming pants when he sees Felix.

Felix stares at him from the backseat, chin propped on one hand. His face is flushed with the heat, and his breath comes short, like he’s having trouble taking in air. Dimitri staggers into his pants, which are oddly tight around the thighs, and pops open the side door. Felix blinks rapidly in the morning light.

“Sorry,” Dimitri says. “I used up one of our bottles.”

Felix makes a strangled, rattling sound.

“Felix?”

“Yeah, okay,” Felix says, at last. “Doesn’t matter.” He folds himself up and pushes himself out of the car. “Hand me one.”

“Of course.”

Felix yanks the bottle from Dimitri’s hand as though it’ll burn him to linger, and dumps most of it over his head. His hair hangs limp in his eyes and over his shoulders, and Dimitri watches water drip over Felix’s lean body, sliding in rivulets down his abs and over his muscular thighs. His mouth feels suddenly dry. He needs water, desperately.

 _There is,_ he thinks, as he forces himself to turn around and grab his shirt, which barely fits over his chest, _a great deal of water on Felix already._

He pushes the nonsensical image of licking Felix’s abs to a dejected, shameful corner of his mind and climbs into the front seat to stare at the dashboard.

A few minutes later, a fully-clothed Felix opens the driver’s side door.

“Okay,” he says, starting up the engine. “Let’s go to Fhirdiad.”

***

Felix isn’t thinking about the water. No.

He’s thinking about driving, about the drone of the radio which has moved from the doom-and-gloom of a preacher talking about how Only Sothis Can Save You From Your Sins, Which Are Many to a conspiracy theory about how Fodlan is really being run by a giant dragon in disguise fighting a shady underground organization beneath the Shambhala airport (that was at least interesting) and has now moved onto slow, mournful ballads about banditry and doomed affairs.

And Felix is most certainly not focusing on Dimitri, standing there in the early morning sun with water glinting off his gorgeous chest, his abs, his thighs...the sight of it dripping down onto his tight briefs, over the shape of his --

Felix jerks his mind out of the gutter and reaches down to turn up the radio.

“....coming up next, we have our call-in program with Magical Miss Lysithea, who will tell the future for you!”

“Um, Felix,” Dimitri says, clearing his throat. “Were you thinking of calling in? Perhaps not the best plan if you wish to remain anonymous.”

“We don’t have a phone. And I doubt anyone looking for us listens to Magical Miss Lysithea’s Psychic Call-In Hours.” Felix glances over at him. He scowls. “You need new clothes.”

Dimitri blinks at him, his messy blond hair escaping his hasty bun and hanging over his face. “I’m aware they’re not in the best condition, Felix, but I do have to point out that yours aren’t much better.”

Felix knows that, he smells like -- well, he’s wearing clothes that he wore, washed and dried on the hood of his car overnight under a billboard. But that’s not really the problem, here. The problem is that somehow Dimitri’s clothes...shrunk. They didn’t look that tight before. They’re suddenly --

“Miss Lysithea, I was wondering if you could tell me if I’ll ever find my one true love?”

“Not _you_ , you're awful,” comes the slightly waspish voice of Miss Lysithea. “Be more interesting and maybe you'll get a date. But someone else, yeah, they will. Someone listening is sitting right next to theirs, too bad they're too much of a --.”

Felix leans down and turns off the radio. “We have a phone,” he says, which is stupid. “It just doesn’t work.”

“I -- see,” says Dimitri, sounding confused. “Felix, is everything all right?”

Felix laughs. Outside, the quiet two-lane highway is empty save the occasional slow-moving farm vehicle. He rolls down the window and grabs one of his cloves, and Dimitri immediately reaches for the lighter on the dash and leans in to light Felix’s cigarette.

“You hate it when I smoke,” Felix says, leaning in, watching the tip of the black cigarette turn red.

“It seems like it might relax you, and this is not….well, the time to lecture you about your health.” He smiles, tentative, and Felix hates how gorgeous he looks with his messy hair and too-tight clothes and Goddess but the way the water looked falling over him --

“Everything isn’t all right,” Felix says, turning to exhale out of the window, tapping the cigarette. The wind blows ashes in his face. Of course it does. “You know it isn’t. Why would you -- why would you even _ask_ that?”

“I don’t know,” Dimitri says, and there’s an aching, quiet _sadness_ there that makes Felix want to bang his head into the steering wheel. “I feel like everything with us is out of step.”

“Well, people have been trying to kill us, so --”

“For years, Felix.” Dimitri’s voice goes all earnest and firm, the tone of voice that makes Felix’s whole body go tight and hot. “It’s been years.”

Felix inhales so sharply on the cigarette he nearly starts coughing. “Is this what you want to talk about? Right now?”

Dimitri stares down at his hands. “I don’t want you to be. Angry.”

Felix laughs again. “That’s like asking the sun not to rise.” He sighs, tosses the cigarette out and glances in the rearview mirror. There’s a car behind them, and a bus with _First Church of Sothis_ a few ways in front, but otherwise they’re alone. “I’m not….angry at you. This isn’t your fault.”

Dimitri’s laugh is hollow. “Of course. I’m the target of an assassination attempt that has us running with no phone, no clothes, we can’t even call your father, and yet it’s not my fault.”

Felix reaches out and grabs Dimitri’s hand. He tugs it. “Look at me.” Dimitri does, and Felix says harshly, “It’s not. Your fault. It’s not. I know I -- I know I haven’t been very, very good with this, with any of this, after Glenn, but it wasn’t your fault then and it’s not your fault now.”

Dimitri’s hand is large, warm, his fingers strong as the curl around Felix’s. The touch is simple and yet it makes Dimitri’s face light up, and Felix can’t name the emotions coursing through him fast enough; guilt, happiness, and the same thing that got him hard as a rock that morning watching Dimitri pour water all over his gorgeous fucking body.

“I’m glad to have this time with you,” Dimitri says, softly, the expression on his face so fucking tender that Felix can’t meet his gaze for long. “I only wish it could have been, well. Different.”

“Yeah.” Felix can’t quite say it back, not yet, but he….wants to. He thinks, anyway. He gives Dimitri’s hand a squeeze. “I did. Miss you.” It’s the hardest thing he’s had to say in years. But it’s the truth, and maybe it’s a start.

“I missed you, too,” Dimitri says, softly. He lifts Felix’s hand, and Felix is so caught in the moment that he doesn’t realize what’s happening until he feels the slightest brush of Dimitri’s mouth against his hand.

Dimitri just --

Why is he _like_ this?

Felix pulls his hand away. It feels like Dimitri just took the lighter and lit him on fire, all of him, shuddery little pulses of pleasure are singing through him and curling low in his stomach.

“Felix --”

“No, I -- Dimitri, it’s --” he stops, eyes the rearview mirror again. He goes cold. The car is still there, behind them, and despite slowing down it doesn’t seem to want to get closer or pass them.

It could be nothing. It could be an assassin. Felix is taking no chances, so he says shortly, “I don’t like that car back there. We’re going to need to get clothes anyway.”

Dimitri turns around in his seat to look out the back window -- it’s useless to say things like _there’s a car, don’t look_ , because Dimitri always has been the person who turns and says, _where?_ since they were kids -- and says, “If your instincts say not to trust it, then we won’t. Goddess knows yours have been far more keen than mine.”

“Hey.” Felix reaches out and tugs on Dimitri’s hair, and maybe they both pretend not to notice Dimitri’s sudden sharp inhale. “You need to stop that. The past is over. All that matters is getting home.”

“You’re right. Of course. Well, perhaps we could go…” Dimitri points at a billboard. “There.”

The billboard is black with the word _Abyss_ painted in bright purple. Underneath it says, _Look and See What Looks Back, Left at next exit, 9 miles on Highway AW_.  
Beneath that, smaller letters proclaim _museum, gift shop, curios for the discerning traveler with an open mind_.

It’s either that or another truck stop. Felix speeds up, takes the exit going a little too fast and heads toward the Abyss -- which seems fairly fitting, given this entire trip, so much that he’d laugh if he wasn’t still thinking about Dimitri’s mouth on his skin, the way his deep voice sounded saying _I missed you_.

***

Abyss does not look quite as dramatic as Felix expects.

It’s a small house with the barest excuse of a parking lot, most of which is grown over with weeds and a tree whose roots have cracked and upended the surface. Felix parks and stays in the car, alert, watching to see if they’ve been followed.

They haven’t, so Felix pushes the door open, pockets the keys and nods toward the small house. “I guess that’s the Abyss, then.”

“I’m not entirely sure there’s room for anything much to look back,” Dimitri says, and Felix smiles before he can think about it too much.

“It says there’s a gift shop,” is all Felix says, though, as they walk up three uneven steps and stop in front of the door. It looks like someone’s house, so much so that Felix has to turn and look at the sign again to make sure it really is the Abyss.

“I think a serial killer lives here,” Dimitri says. “I’ve seen this movie. Felix, perhaps we should go.”

There is, however, an _Open_ sign on the door. There’s also Dimitri, standing wreathed in the fading afternoon light, gold hair tousled and shirt too tight and no, Felix can’t handle this on top of everything. He shrugs and pushes the door open, and there’s the soft sound of a chime as they step inside.

The interior is a room with a desk, two chairs, and a rack of pamphlets for popular tourist attractions -- it looks like the lobby of a cheap hotel, honestly -- with a door behind the desk that says _No Unaccompanied Minors_.

There’s a little bell on the desk, silver, with velvet around the handle and a black ribbon. Felix picks it up and sees the ringer is a skull. He sighs. “You might be right about the serial killer thing.”

The sign next to the bell says, _Summon us...if you dare._

“I think this is an escape room,” says Felix. He went to one with Annette a few weeks ago. It seems like months. Years. Another life. He wondered what Dimitri was doing, while he was solving puzzles and undoing locks with Ashe, Annette and her girlfriend Mercedes decoding a message in a dollhouse with a mirror and a blacklight.

“The door is right _there_ , Felix,” says Dimitri.

Well, that answers that, then. Felix pushes back the guilt and says, “It’s a place you go for fun. The object is to get out. A puzzle. You only have so much time before you fail.”

Dimitri shoves his hands in the pockets of his too-tight jeans and smiles grimly. “For fun, is it.”

Felix snorts and rings the bell. What the hell.

The door opens before he even puts the thing back on the desk. A young woman swans in, wearing a green velvet corset dress, a nice contrast with her light brown skin and red hair. She has red eyes, too, thickly-lashed and rimmed with black. “We were wondering if you were coming in or what.”

“We don’t have a reservation,” says Dimitri, quickly.

The woman stares at him. “Cute. Come on, it’s this way.” She turns back and heads to the door.

“Ah,” Dimitri says, stepping forward and putting an arm out, like he’s trying to stop Felix from doing anything rash. “What is, exactly?”

“Huh? Abyss. That’s what you came to see, right?” The woman turns. “I’m Hapi, by the way. You?”

“Well, it’s been quite a week,” Dimitri says, and Felix stares at him while the bottom of his world drops out from under him as he realizes, right there in a weird maybe-escape-room, maybe-a-serial-killer house, that all those feelings he’s tried to forget about having for Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd haven’t ever gone away, they’re just there, waiting to come back up and grab him.

He’s looking into the abyss, all right. And what’s staring back is the very obvious flashing light of _feelings_. Felix wants to turn and run, but they’re already doing that so maybe there’s no hope for it, anymore.

“You’re not the first person who’s ever said that, but I think you’re the first person who didn’t mean it as a joke,” says the woman. “Hapi is my name.”

“Oh! My apologies, yes, of course. I’m. My name, well, that’s. Complicated.”

“Complicated, huh.” Hapi turns and raises her brows at Felix. “And you’re, what? Startled? You look like you just saw a ghost. We have those downstairs. Speaking of, are you coming?”

Felix exchanges a look with Dimitri, shrugs, and heads through the door. Beyond is nothing but a spiral staircase, going down.

“Yeah, so,” Hapi says, and waves a hand. “The Abyss awaits. Oh, uh. You’re both legal adults, right?”

“What exactly is --,” says Dimitri, but Felix just gives a _yes_ and starts down the stairs.

The downstairs of Abyss is nothing like the upstairs. For one, it’s _huge_ , cavernous, with dark walls and sconces and glittering lights with some kind of “flicker” setting to make them look like candles. There’s a side room with a door that really is a gift shop, and Felix almost goes there immediately but he’s struck by the sign that says _Wilted Rose_.

“That’s for refreshments,” says Hapi, pointing. “ _Chalice of Beginnings_ is the gift shop, don’t ask, we let Coco name it. And that one, with the sign that says _Cindered Shadows_ , that’s the museum with the ghost shit.” She clears her throat. “Sorry. I mean, the paranormal artifacts.”

“Why,” Felix asks, staring. “Why is this here?”

“True story,” Hapi says. “My, uh, well, they’re family, let’s just say that. We were on our way to this, um, festival thing on the coast, you’ve probably never heard of it --”

“Magefire Golem,” Felix says, flatly. “I know what it is. I went to college.”

“Well, we were on our way but Yuri-bird had this, sort of, revelation I guess about it and we stayed here.” She shrugs. “Also the van broke down and this place was some kind of bomb shelter for people who think, like, there’s some mystical cult beneath the Shambhala airport --”

“The ones fighting the dragon overlords, yeah,” Felix mutters.

“Right, well, it was abandoned and no one ever came back, so, we stuck around and turned it into this.” She holds her arms out. “Anyway, go look around, buy something, yeah? The electric bill doesn’t pay for it itself.”

Felix wants to go to the gift shop immediately and then get out of what he is now almost sure is some kind of cult recruitment center, but before he can, Dimitri heads immediately toward the room with the _paranormal artifacts_. There’s no door, just a space where one should be with a curtain rod and the kind of faux-velvet fabric curtains you find at movie theatres, just in dark purple instead of black.

“If you give a donation you get a free t-shirt,” says Hapi. “Just, maybe we only have them in your size, Startled. Though, Complicated seems to appreciate a tighter fit, so maybe you’re into it, who knows.”

“Thanks,” Felix says, and hands over some money. He’ll take what he can get.

***

The Abyss really is fascinating, once Dimitri has the chance to get past the very real concern that this is just a setup for a future true crime novel. The doorway to the paranormal artifacts room opens up into a moving walkway, which goes on for about five feet before it breaks down and Dimitri has to walk the rest of the way, framed on both sides by floor to ceiling mirrors. A glass cage hangs a little ways away, holding what looks like a ball of light, and Dimitri presses a button on the walkway only to recoil at the loud, booming voice of a man shouting through the overhead speakers.

 _Hey!_ the voice says. _So this little buddy is what you call a Spirit Ball. They’re like, the leftover bullshit your soul leaves behind when you kick it._

“Huh,” Felix says.

“Well,” says Dimitri. “That’s. Concise.”

Felix presses a button in front of a six-legged rabbit with a visible seam stitched under the fifth leg.

 _Right, so, this is a Smeerp,_ the voice says. _It’s from the what? The what region? Where? Fuck, I don’t know what—It’s a six-legged rabbit, people, deal with it._

“He isn’t wrong,” Felix says.

They pass a giant butterfly and a doll with a certificate claiming it is definitely, most likely haunted by the ghost of a fast food chain founder before the hallway abruptly ends. They step into a room draped with curtains, each one blocking off a little alcove with an exhibit or curiosity, and little violet lights hang from the ceiling, swaying slightly in the air conditioning.

“So,” Felix says. “What are the odds we’re about to die?”

“Less than they were yesterday, I suppose,” Dimitri says, before he can stop himself. Felix snorts. He always looks so embarrassed when he laughs, lifting his hand to hide a smile, and Dimitri resists the urge to push his hand down and stare, just for the novelty of it. Then Felix catches his eye, and his face… spasms, almost, as though he isn’t sure just what emotion to settle on, and he lurches puppet-like to the closest exhibit.

It’s a fairly remarkable one, all things considered. A marble throne—Literally made of marbles, like the quirky walls outside the playground when Dimitri was young—rests on a plinth, with an animatronic king lounging on it sideways. The animatronic has his legs slung over one arm of the throne and his back to the other, and his feet swing back and forth as he stares at a paperback novel in his hand. The crown on his head is tilted, slightly, as though any small movement will shake it off, and the animatronic’s face is lovely and delicate, with lavender hair spilling over his eyes.

“Here,” Dimitri says, and presses a button on the plaque in front of the throne.

 _Behold,_ the voice says. _This guy._

“Helpful,” Felix drawls.

“Isn’t he?” says the animatronic.

“Fucking shit.” Dimitri has a split second to react as Felix levitates, catlike, into his arms, scrabbling uselessly up his chest like he’s climbing a tree to escape a pack of wolves. Dimitri struggles to hold him, adjusting around his flailing legs, and staggers back as Felix stills at last with his arms wrapped around Dimitri’s face, holding Dimitri to his heaving chest.

There’s a faint rending sound as the seam of Dimitri’s shirt splits, and the man on the throne laughs.

“I’d say keep your shirt on,” he says, in that low, melodic voice, “but I can see that may be a challenge. I haven’t had _this_ reaction in a while.”

“Let go of me,” Felix hisses, still mashing Dimitri’s face to his bosom.

“Terribly sorry,” Dimitri says, and bends to set Felix down. He winces as his shirt rips open down the middle of his back, and tugs at it slightly. The whole thing falls to pieces in his hands, just a collar of cloth with strips of ruined T-shirt hanging on for dear life.

“Oh, heck,” he says.

The man on the throne—who is leaning forward now, fingers steepled in front of his face—smiles. Felix glowers at him.

“Yes, I know,” he says.

“Tell me,” the man says. “Does he say _swell_ unironically?”

“I’m right here, thank you,” says Dimitri, who has.

“Oh, yes.” The man on the throne gives him a long, considering look. “I can see that. Welcome to the Abyss. I’m Yuri, the proprietor of this establishment. Have you seen the haunted dollhouse yet?”

Felix opens his mouth, no doubt to say something scathing, and Dimitri smiles brightly.

“No,” he says. “But I’m sure it’s just—“

“Swell.” Yuri’s smile goes foxlike. “Take a left at the replica mothman and keep going. You can’t miss it.”

“Aren’t you…”

“Coming with?” Yuri swings his legs over the arm of the throne again. “God, no. I have better things to do.” He opens the book again, which has a shirtless man on the cover staring wistfully into a sunset. “Enjoy yourselves, boys.”

“What the fuck,” Felix whispers, as Dimitri drags him off.

“You know, I think this place is starting to grow on me,” Dimitri says, in his best earnest voice, and Felix gives him a slow, horrified look before his brows snap together. “Come on, Felix, let’s go see the mothman.”

They see the mothman.

“Saints,” Felix says, two minutes later, pressing his forehead to a glass display featuring a collection of haunted dolls in a gutted dollhouse. “What the ever loving fuck was that.”

“Don’t dwell on it,” Dimitri says.

“But its _eyes._ ”

“Try to think about something else,” Dimitri says, even though he’s just about ready to curl into a ball and stare into the middle distance for the rest of his known life. “Puppies. Cats. You like cats.”

“It was like that thing was staring right through me,” Felix mutters. Dimitri sighs and grabs him by the shoulders, twists him around to face him.

“Look at me, then,” he says. “Look at me, Felix. The mothman isn’t real.”

Felix stares at him in silence for a moment. Dimitri shakes him, just a little.

Felix’s gaze drifts to Dimitri’s bare chest. “What,” he says, finally.

“The mothman,” Dimitri repeats. “Not real.”

Felix blinks. “What. No, I. The fuck are you talking about.”

“Cryptids.” Dimitri reaches up and touches Felix’s chin, closing his slack mouth. Felix’s cheeks burn pink, and he drags his lower lip between his teeth. He’s so… endearing, like this, thrown off-kilter, his eyes glassy and bright, face flushed. Dimitri should pull his hand away, but he keeps it there, tilting Felix’s head up, examining him as though he were a display behind velvet, strange and bewildering.

“There’s something wrong with me,” Felix whispers. Then, before Dimitri can contradict him, he grabs Dimitri’s face with both hands, presses him against the case of haunted dolls, and kisses him full on the mouth.

Dimitri’s shoulder slams into the case. Dolls go tumbling from their miniature rocking chairs. Felix shoves his tongue in Dimitri’s mouth, hooks a leg around his, hauls himself up Dimitri’s body with a sound that Dimitri can feel in his throat as dolls smack into the glass and go rolling across the display. Tentatively, Dimitri reaches down and grabs Felix by the thighs—because it must take a lot out of him, climbing Dimitri like that, not because his thighs tense under Dimitri’s touch, corded muscle gone taut. Not because Dimitri has wanted this since they were thirteen and puberty hit him with all the force of a freight engine. Not because he’s been thinking of Felix standing under the bright sun beneath the Seiros Is Watching billboard that morning, his knuckles scraped raw, hair messy in his face. Felix, driving him headfirst into a bad idea just because Dimitri asked for it. Felix, who maybe… maybe wants Dimitri as badly as Dimitri wants _him._

They slip sideways, both of them, crashing into a glass case holding a furby with an unnaturally long neck, and Felix _moans,_ tugs at Dimitri’s hair, rises up with his legs hooked around Dimitri’s thighs to drag his head back at stare at him. Felix is panting slightly, his lips swollen and wet, his eyes blown wide.

Dimitri’s ass bumps into the plaque in front of the display, and the recorded voice startles both of them apart.

“Haunted dolls,” the voice says. “There’s like, a million of them on EBay.”

Felix stares at Dimitri like a deer on the edge of a dark street, ready to bolt.

“All these dolls are certified,” the voice says, as Felix licks his lips for the second time, “which means we printed out a paper on the internet saying there are ghosts in there. We can fit so many ghosts in these babies.”

“We should.” Felix clears his throat. “Get clothes from the gift shop. And go.”

“Felix,” Dimitri says, but Felix has already spun on his heel, a marionette lurching past the velvet hangings and back through the broken walkway. Dimitri follows him, helpless, tied to him by an invisible line, and ends up stumbling into a crammed gift shop full of tiny cryptid figurines, snow globes with black glitter, and a row of goblets with fake blood running up the side.

“Saw the mothman, huh,” Hapi says, looking from Felix’s pale, wild-eyed face to Dimitri’s pained grimace of concern. “Got your complimentary shirts. Uh. This one might need it.”

Dimitri takes the offered shirt without thinking. It’s a midriff in dark purple which only just manages to stretch over Dimitri’s pecs, and it sports a pair of wide, sparkling eyes over his nipples.

“Glows in the dark, too,” Hapi says, helpfully.

Felix’s free shirt is a little longer, but there aren’t any sleeves, and the front just says, _I fell into the Abyss and all I got was JACKED._ he frowns at it. There’s an eight pack of abs drawn towards the bottom in what looks like black marker.

“Thank you,” Dimitri says, after the silence stretches just a minute too long.

“Yeah. Okay.”

Dimitri discreetly checks the rack of souvenir sweatpants while Felix, apparently, has a quiet, existential crisis over a hand-drawn eight-pack. He does find a pair of sweatpants about his size, which is a small miracle, and even if they do say _haunted_ on the back in bright white letters, he can always wear them inside-out in a pinch.

He checks the inside, just in case.

“They’re reversible,” he says, after another minute of dead silence, and holds them out for Felix to see.

_Fuck the Church, _it says, right where his ass would be.__

__“Which church,” Felix says, in a deadened voice._ _

__“I’m not… certain. Church in general?”_ _

__Still, Dimitri’s jeans are practically straining at the seams, so they do end up buying the sweatpants, haunted or not._ _

__“Are we going to talk about what just happened?” Dimitri asks, as he changes into the sweatpants in a bathroom stall with a toilet shaped like the mouth of a dragon. Felix, standing at a urinal with fairy lights taped over it like an afterthought, grunts. “That isn’t an answer.”_ _

__“Look. I.” Felix makes a strangled sound as Dimitri emerges in his sweatpants, and hurriedly shoves himself back in his jeans. He lunges for the sink. “Probably not the best place, okay?”_ _

__“Felix, we made... we kissed against a display of haunted dolls.”_ _

__Felix turns on the tap. “Yeah, but I draw the line at. At talking about it in a bathroom where the toilets have. _Faces._ ” He groans. “Fuck, I need a drink.”_ _

__“They have that chalice place,” Dimitri says, adjusting the hem of his new top. The eyes sparkle in the mirror, and Felix glances at them, then away._ _

__“No. Let’s… go somewhere else, for that,” Felix says. “An actual bar.”_ _

__“Whatever makes you more comfortable, Felix,” Dimitri says, carefully. Felix lifts his slightly hunted gaze to Dimitri’s, then looks squarely at his pecs and makes a soft, involuntary sound like a duck being stepped on._ _

__“Right,” he says. “Comfortable.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Road Trip Mixtape  
> Track Two: I Hate Myself For Loving You by Joan Jett


	3. The Black Eagle Bar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Explicit content ahead!

It takes a few hours before they find a bar. 

It’s in a slightly more populated area, which makes Felix nervous, not only because of the possibility they’ll be recognized but because of what Dimitri is wearing and how that’s going to go over. And how he can’t -- he can’t stop thinking about that kiss. 

But he needs to stop thinking about it. He needs to stop thinking about it, fast, because if he doesn’t then Dimitri might somehow _know_ he’s thinking about it and then he’ll. He’ll want. To _talk_ about it. 

Felix does not want to talk about it. 

He would not mind, however, climbing into Dimitri’s lap and kissing him again.

The bar is called the Black Eagle, and the bouncer checking IDs has blue hair and the sort of attitude that suggests he thinks he’s the same height as Dimitri. 

“So, what are you doing here?” the bouncer asks. 

Felix stares at him. “It’s a bar.” 

“Sure. Right.” His smile is a challenge and he leans forward on his stool, and instead of making his voice quieter like a normal person would in this scenario he gets inexplicably louder instead. “But _why_?” 

“I want a drink? Is there another reason?” Felix doesn’t mean to sound so combative, he really doesn’t. But what the fuck kind of question is that? 

“Ha, ha, ha! No way, what, no, what a dumb question!” The bouncer says, way too loudly. “Go to the bar!” 

Felix glances at Dimitri, who shrugs, and they make their way across the dimly-lit room toward the bar at the back. Not one person is sitting on any of the tables scattered throughout the establishment, but there’s a young red-headed woman sitting at the end and checking her phone. 

She’s drinking something, too, making it very strange why the bouncer would have asked him why they were there in the first place. 

Dimitri walks right up to the bar, flashing _Haunted_ with every step, and the guy at the front door cracks it open with a foot to watch. Felix unconsciously holds a hand over Dimitri’s ass to hide it, realizes exactly how close he is to just grabbing himself a handful and descending into unknown territory, and shoves his hands in his pockets. 

“Hi, there,” Dimitri says, and the bartender, who has long, soft brown hair with a jaunty hat pinned to the side, stares at him blankly. “Can I get your… Oh, this one has oranges in it.”

Felix digs through his wallet for his cash, glances at the menu, and shrugs. “Give me the… Sex on the… Why is it called Sex on the Wyvern.”

“Try it and find out,” the bartender says, smiling faintly. 

“I’ll have, um, the. This one,” Dimitri says, tapping the menu. The bartender looks at it and raises her brows.

“Sure. Just say it.”

Dimitri blushes red to his ears. “The. Shivering Orgasm.”

“Anything for you, sweetheart,” the bartender says. “One Shivering Orgasm and Sex on the Wyvern, coming right up.”

“Let’s--” Felix grabs Dimitri before he can sit on the barstool and signal _Haunted_ to the world at large. “Let’s go to one of the booths, okay?”

“Oh. Alright, Felix.” Dimitri gamely follows him, and as he slides into the booth, his hand brushes Felix’s lower back. Felix marches around the table and sits on the other side, staring at the glow-in-the-dark eyes on Dimitri’s top. They’re starting to creep upwards, revealing the curve of his pecs, and Felix wonders what it must feel like to just. Take them in his hands. 

“Felix, you’re giving me that look again,” Dimitri says. Felix jerks, slamming his knee into the table. 

“No,” he says, grimacing through the pain in his leg. “I’m not.”

“Did you hurt yourself?” Dimitri asks. He starts to scoot closer, and Felix stiffens. “Felix, was it really that bad?”

Felix stares at him. At Dimitri, who could pick him up in one hand and kiss him senseless, who had him breathless and gasping in the audience of at least a dozen haunted dolls, earnestly wondering if he’d _kissed_ him wrong. “I’m not. Ready to talk about it.”

Dimitri’s face falls, just a little, and Felix can’t help but feel like he’d just kicked a puppy. “Well. I should get our drinks.” He stands up, and Felix mutely hands him his wallet. 

_Haunted,_ Dimitri’s ass cheeks say, as he leaves. _Haunted. Haunted._

“I am,” Felix mutters, and sinks into the booth. 

He doesn’t know why he’s so caught up over this. They’re literally on the run from hired killers--who were probably already responsible for every _other_ accident that claimed the lives of the Blaiddyd family so far--with a dwindling supply of cash, a killer’s stolen car, and too many miles left to Fhirdiad. Whether or not Felix… feels like climbing Dimitri like a tree is irrelevant. 

Should be irrelevant. 

He sinks another inch into the booth, and nearly jabs his knee a second time as Dimitri shouts at the bar. 

“El!” Felix is halfway out of the booth, fists clenched, when he stops in dead silence as Dimitri embraces a woman at the bar. She has fashionable white hair tied up in a bun on one side of her head, and is wearing a suit with a vest that has corset strings laced up to her high neckline. Felix looks her over, and can see the outline of knives on her thighs, the strap of a gun harness on her hip. When she wraps her arms around Dimitri’s shoulder, Felix spots three tattoos on her right hand, trailing down in a line. Then she chucks Dimitri under the chin with her knuckles and kisses him on the cheek. 

“Dimitri,” she says. “Well. Would you look at that.”

“I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see you again,” Dimitri says. His and Felix’s drinks sit untouched on the counter beside him, and his eyes gleam with warmth as he smiles at El. “Your last email was months ago--You said you were having some trouble with a business associate. I hope HR was able to handle them.”

“Oh,” El says, glancing at the woman behind the bar. “Yes. They were.”

Felix gets up. Dimitri is leaning on the bar, looking at El like she hung the stars, and something in that rankles, an itch just below the skin. He heads over to the counter and takes his drink from next to Dimitri, but Dimitri just flashes him a bright smile and turns back to El.

“El, this is Felix,” he says. “My. Friend.”

“Yes,” Felix says, and knocks back his drink. El raises a brow.

“Felix, this is Edelgard. We went to school together, remember, she was the one who invited me to the middle-school dance?”

“The one where some girl read a list of the principal’s illegal bullshit, you mean,” Felix says. “When the cops showed up.”

“Oh, yes, but she had a good reason for it,” Dimitri says, beaming at Edelgard.

“Justice had to be done,” El says, and places a hand on her hip, right near one of her concealed knives. “I have to say, Dima--”

_Dima? Since when did she--_ Felix finishes his drink and looks at the bartender, who smiles and starts mixing him another without a word. 

“I’m a little worried. You look… tired. And I heard about your uncle on the news…”

“He’s fine,” Felix says, and El shoots him a sharp look. “We’re fine.”

Dimitri glances at Felix. “Ah. Well. If I must be honest, we have had a little tr--”

“Great meeting you,” Felix says, and grabs both his second drink and Dimitri’s. “Dim--Dima,” he says, and hates himself. “I’ll be in the booth. When you need me.”

“Oh, yes,” Dimitri says, in a vague tone. “Just a moment, Felix.”

Felix is already done with his second drink by the time Dimitri gets back. “She was just on her way to work,” Dimitri says, as he slips back into the booth. “She does community outreach, you know. Edelgard always has been a champion for the voiceless.”

“Mm,” Felix says.

Dimitri takes a sip of his drink. “She’s quite pretty, don’t you think?” he asks, and Felix grabs the edge of the booth seat as Dimitri’s foot slides up Felix’s leg. “Talented, compassionate. Beautiful. She was one of my first crushes, you know.”

“Was she,” Felix says. Dimitri’s foot nudges between his thighs, and Felix parts his legs before he realizes what he’s doing. “Dimitri!”

“I thought you called me Dima,” Dimitri says, and oh gods. He’s being _coy._ Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd is trying to _tease_ him, and Felix has very clearly lost track of his entire life. 

Felix takes a deep breath, pushes his glass to the side, and gets up. Dimitri’s smile drops. 

“Felix,” he says, but Felix is already marching towards the bathroom, which of course is a single stall with incomprehensible signs plastered all over it, and Dimitri almost doesn’t make it to him in time. As it is, he gets to the door right when Felix does, and trains the biggest, most painfully wretched puppy eye on him that Felix wants to shrivel up and die.

“I’m sorry,” Dimitri says. “I swear. I’ll drop it. I only thought… I thought you may have felt the same, back in the Abyss, but I see I must have. Misread the situation. I shouldn’t expect you to think so kindly of me when it’s my troubles that have put us in this mess, and I--”

“Oh my god, fuck you,” Felix says, and drags Dimitri down by the glittery top. 

He tastes like oranges. 

They stumble sideways into the bathroom, which has a wild, marble-like mural wrapped around three of the walls, and Felix does, in fact, attempt to climb Dimitri. It goes badly, because the tiled walls are slippery, and when Dimitri kisses him back, deep and perfect like he’s been _practicing_ since the Abyss while Felix’s back was turned, Felix slips to the floor, cranes his neck, and stands on his toes instead. 

“Here,” Dimitri says, and turns Felix around so his back is to the wall. “Let me make it easier.”

Then, while Felix pants in dazed arousal with his back to a mural of peasant women carrying wheat, Dimitri sinks to his knees. 

“May I?” he asks, placing his hands on Felix’s thighs. 

Felix makes a soft, involuntary honking sound, coughs, and nods. “Yes.”

“I know it would be better to do this properly,” Dimitri says, and his voice is a low murmur as he runs his hands up Felix’s legs. “Take you out to dinner. Give you things. Ask your father.”

“Ask my--Dimitri. You are not bringing my father into this.”

“But he should know I care for you,” Dimitri says, his cold blue eye burning. 

Felix closes his eyes for a second, prays to no one. He’ll never be able to look at his father again without thinking of this.

“But I can give you this,” Dimitri says at last, and kisses Felix’s stomach above his jeans, rucking up his shirt. Felix bites on his fist and tilts his head back as Dimitri starts unbuttoning his pants. 

“I would like to have my mouth on you,” Dimitri says, like this is an at all reasonable thing to say, and _licks_ the front of Felix’s boxer briefs, which shouldn’t be hot, but it has Felix shuddering and hitching in a sharp breath. “I’m sure I can take all of you. Would you like me to, Felix?”

“What the fuck are you--yes,” Felix gasps. 

“Good.” Dimitri licks him again, sucking at the cloth just over the head of Felix’s cock. “I want you to feel good, Felix. Will you tell me?”

Felix stares at the mural on the opposite wall. A woman stands there, holding a massive bag of flowers over her shoulders, staring mournfully into the wheat fields in the distance. “Uh huh,” he says, and gasps as Dimitri lowers his boxer briefs and presses his lips to the head of his cock, takes him in all at once, one hot, slick slide of the tongue as he takes Felix’s cock to the hilt. 

“H-holy shit,” Felix breathes. Dimitri’s eyelid is half closed, like he’s almost on the verge of getting off just through the privilege of having Felix’s cock in his mouth, and when he pulls back, he hollows his cheeks and does something with his tongue that Felix is going to have to try when he’s on _his_ knees, next time. Felix forces himself not to move, clutching at the tiles, and Dimitri starts up an almost punishing rhythm, steady and hot and tight, Felix’s cock bumping the back of his throat while Dimitri squeezes his thighs and moans like he’s about to come. 

“This is.” Felix closes his eyes tight. “Dimitri. Fuck, where did you learn how to… I’m going to...”

Dimitri doesn’t draw back when Felix’s hips move, fucking into his mouth. He just goes deeper, holds himself there while Felix curses into his fist and tries not to think about how loud his breathing must be as he comes down Dimitri’s throat. Dimitri sits back on his heels and has the gall to smile nervously up at him, as though he hasn’t just made Felix fall apart in a shady bar bathroom while wearing a shirt with an eight-pack on it. 

“Was it good for you?” he asks.

“You did amazing, sweetie,” shouts the bartender, from the other side of the door. Both Felix and Dimitri freeze in place. “But now you’re _really_ gonna have to go.”

*** 

Felix keeps staring at him as he drives. Dimitri can feel it, at any rate, though Felix turns away each time Dimitri glances over to meet his gaze. 

“Was it --” 

“Yes,” Felix interrupts, fingers tight on the wheel. 

Dimitri nods, though he’s not sure why, and stares out of the window. It’s been rolled down to let in the cool air, to save gas from running the air conditioning. He clears his throat. “So you --” 

“ _Yes_ , Dimitri.” 

“I see.” Dimitri pushes his loose hair out of his face. “What exactly. Are you saying _yes_ to, Felix?” 

“It. I. It was -- good. I liked it.” 

That had been, in fact, what Dimitri wanted to ask. “All right. Yes. Where are we going? 

“To -- we should sleep. Somewhere.” Felix takes the next exit, seemingly at random, and hesitates a moment before turning left. They drive quietly for a few minutes, until Felix abruptly turns the car into an empty parking lot with one streetlight in the far corner. 

There’s nothing near the lot but a big, empty field. 

“Why would anyone put a parking lot here,” Dimitri asks. 

“Get in the back,” Felix says. He sounds angry. But a different sort of angry, than when this all started a few days ago. 

Dimitri blinks, but he climbs out of the passenger seat and goes to the back of the car, stretching out along the seat in the back. “Perhaps at some point we could find a cheap hotel again, it would be nice to have a show--oh,” he says, surprised, as Felix climbs in and drapes himself over Dimitri like a prickly, scowly blanket. 

“Shhh,” Felix says, nonsensically, and kisses him. 

Well. A shower would be nice, but this is also. Also good. Dimitri slides a hand up Felix’s back and kisses him. Felix trembles against him, hands curving over Dimitri’s shoulders. 

“Felix,” Dimitri breathes, against his mouth. 

“Shhh, stop talking,” Felix says, again, even though all Dimitri’s said is his name. 

Felix kisses him again, tongue licking hot into Dimitri’s mouth, and one hand rubbing over his chest, down to slip beneath his ridiculous shirt and press warm against his skin. 

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” Felix says, shifting a bit to the side -- nearly shoving Dimitri off the seat -- and pausing with his hand above the bulge in Dimitri’s sweatpants. 

Dimitri does not want him to stop. He grabs Felix by the back of the neck, kisses him desperately, and pushes his hips up into Felix’s hand. 

Felix groans against his mouth and shoves his hand down Dimitri’s pants. 

Dimitri has thought about this, with Felix, so often -- so much so that it feels like a hazy fantasy that isn’t real, though he would not have imagined it happening quite like this. Just like he wouldn’t have thought he’d get Felix off in a bathroom in a bar. 

With his childhood crush _overhearing_ him getting Felix off in the bathroom. 

“Dimitri,” Felix says, and bites sharply at his jaw. “You’re thinking too much.” 

“How,” Dimitri manages, on a moan, as Felix tightens his hand and jerks his cock, hard and perfect. 

“I just know.” Felix pushes up, his hair hanging down around his face, his expression severe. “Goddess. You’re so -- how are you --” Before he can finish, he’s kissing Dimitri again, then pushing himself down Dimitri’s body. 

Dimitri has nightmares about the accident that took his father’s life. Felix’s brother’s life. He dreams of shattering glass and the hot smell of asphalt, the blinding pain where his eye used to be, like someone shoved a scalding hot poker into his brain. There have been times, watching movies, when a car crash would happen and despite knowing very well it wasn’t real, Dimitri still had to look away. 

But he thinks maybe, now, when he thinks about cars he’s going to not think about accidents and cracked chassis and the smell of burning rubber, the glint of broken glass in the long grass on the side of the road, but Felix, severe expression at odds with the soft gleam of his amber eyes, the flush on his cheeks, the soft panting breaths and the fact Dimitri can feel Felix’s cock hard against his hip. 

Felix pushes Dimitri’s shirt up, his hands everywhere, moving gracefully to work Dimitri’s hard cock out of his sweats. Dimitri shudders at the first brush of Felix’s mouth, gasps up at the ceiling and moans when Felix takes him fully in his mouth. 

It’s awkward and cramped, Dimitri can’t move and one wrong twitch will send Felix sprawling on the cramped floorboards, probably, but the next ten minutes or so are deliriously blissful as he tangles his fingers in Felix’s dark hair and gives himself over to the sheer pleasure of Felix taking Dimitri’s cock down his throat. 

Dimitri hits his head against the door handle and it’s too hot in the car, but he comes harder than he thinks he ever has in his life. Felix is too-hot and slick with sweat as he climbs back on top of Dimitri and kisses him, desperately, and Dimitri licks the taste of himself out of Felix’s mouth while Felix pants and ruts against him until he comes. 

“Is -- is all of this all right with you? What we’ve done. I would hate...I would hate to make things uncomfortable,” Dimitri says, later, when Felix has his face pressed into his neck and has cleaned himself up with bottled water and napkins from the glove compartment. He waits. “Felix?” 

“Dimitri, we had sex in a bathroom and in the back of this car,” Felix says, but he smiles against Dimitri’s neck. “Nothing about that is comfortable.” 

“Ah, well, yes, that’s true.” Dimitri runs his fingers through Felix’s tangled hair, thrilling quietly at being able to touch him like this, even if it’s way too warm. “But is it. All right?” 

“Yeah,” Felix says, drowsily. There’s the sound of a horn in the distance, a shine of lights against the window. They both stiffen, but all falls into quiet once again. “It’s all right. Go to sleep, Dimitri.” 

Dimitri closes his eye, and does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Road Trip Playlist song: At Last, by Etta James


	4. The Golden Deer Circus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit content in this chapter as well! Also a clown doll.

Dimitri wakes to the sound of bells.

They’re faint bells, thin and high, ringing out a twinkling tune that puts Dimitri in mind of Cornelia’s office in his father’s estate. She used to keep a music box on the shelf, and when Dimitri was young, he would wind the gears and watch the two figures on the box go whirling and spinning just out of reach of one another, arms outspread. Sometimes, he would wake up in the early morning to hear the song jingling away downstairs, but Cornelia was always gone by the time he came down.

He shivers, and grabs Felix around the waist with a shout as someone taps on the car window.

“Oh god,” Felix grunts, seizing up in Dimitri’s arms, and thrashes as he looks up over his shoulder. “Fuck, shit, there’s a man outside.”

“Hey, there,” someone says, and Dimitri bangs his head on the roof as Felix cranks the window down an inch. The man in question is a smiling, green-eyed man about their age, with light brown skin and a sharp smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He’s wearing a gold cape over one shoulder, and a puffy-sleeved shirt that looks almost quilted up close.

“What,” Felix says.

“Just thought you might want to know,” the man says. “We appreciate the enthusiasm, but you don’t have to wait all night just to get in.”

Felix squints. “Get in where.”

The man gestures, and both Felix and Dimitri turn to find that beyond the parking lot, a full, almost completely set-up circus has taken over the field out back. There’s a big top tent with gold and green stripes, a ferris wheel slowly turning its empty carriages towards the sun, booths and rides and stalls all crammed together in a maelstrom of color. Dimitri tries to focus his gaze and reads the sign over the entrance, where a young man with pale green hair is cleaning his glasses.

“The Golden Deer Circus,” he reads.

“And train of traveling curiosities,” says the man outside the window. “People always forget that. I’m Claude. Ringleader.” He snakes his hand through the crack in the window.

Dimitri takes it. 

Behind him, Felix is rifling through the front seat of the car, legs flailing. His foot mashes into Dimitri’s cheek, and Dimitri pushes it aside. “Dimitri. This is Felix. Are we… in the way?”

“Not really,” Claude says, pulling back his hand. “Just wanted you to know. I’m kind of impressed, really. You two slept through most of the set-up.”

“Dimitri.” Felix’s voice is tight, urgent, and Dimitri turns to see him digging through his jeans. “Do you know where my wallet went?”

“Oh, I apologize,” Dimitri says. He pulls out Felix’s wallet, and Felix sighs, snatching it out of his hand. Then he opens it, and his face falls. “What is it?”

“My cards,” Felix whispers. He thumbs through his wallet. “My _money._ Someone took it out of the—It must have been that woman, the one with the hair.”

“They… all had hair, Felix.”

“Your _friend,_ ” Felix says, shaking out his empty wallet. “And now we’re broke, and I don’t know how we’re even gonna get the money to drive back there and beat the shit out of whoever did this.”

“Yikes,” Claude whispers, and Dimitri looks from Felix to Claude, then up at the grinning cartoon deer over the entrance.

“Funny question,” Dimitri says to Claude, as Felix curses and searches for the burner phone he stole a few days back. “But you aren’t, by chance, in need of some assistance?”

Half an hour later, Dimitri is tying a gold apron over his bare chest as Felix stares at the stack of forms Dimitri just signed without so much as a second glance.

“What does it mean,” Felix says, “ _in case of possession by a demon, crossroads?_ ”

“It means we aren’t liable,” says Byleth, the Golden Deer’s HR department, juggler, and part-time magician. He blinks his pale, vacant eyes at Dimitri, who can’t quite tie his apron on all the way.

“For demon possession?” Felix asks. “How often does that happen?”

Byleth thinks about it. “Twice,” he says.

“What?”

“Felix, can you help me with this tie?” Dimitri asks.

“No, hold on,” Felix says. “ _Twice?_ ”

Byleth shrugs. “You get used to it, after a while.”

“Oooh, hey.” A woman with light pink hair, poofy sleeves, and a dress that bobs at her thighs comes striding over, smiling wide. Even her eyes are pink, and her lips are a dark red slash over her face. “I heard we had new guys. Thanks for swearing them in, Professor.”

“ _Professor?_ ” Felix hurries over to Dimitri and ties his apron with a jerk, lowering his voice. “Dimitri. I think we might be in a cult.”

“Nah, we don’t have time for that,” the woman says. She twinkles at him. “Hilda. You must be Grumpy.”

“Felix,” Felix snarls.

“Dimitri.” He holds out a hand to her, and she takes it in a firm grip. “I hope we aren’t too much trouble.”

“You kidding? We’ll take all the help we can get. I’ll be giving you your assignments, I guess.”

“So long as there aren’t any demons, I’m good,” Felix mutters, and Dimitri casts him a sharp look.

“Oh, no,” Hilda says, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “We just have the one right now, and he’s spoken for. Come on.”

Felix is dropped off with a woman named Leonie, who has a barrel of fruit, a bow and arrow, and a series of targets lined out behind a wire on the grass. Felix gives Dimitri a pleading look, but Dimitri is led past the burly, smiling blond in charge of the kids’ games, a solemn man at the sweet shop tent, a man with purple hair and a severe haircut whose job seems to be drinking tea, and finally over to a couch laid out over a stretch of grass, where a woman with light blue hair and a matching gown pets a family of mice on her lap.

“You’ll be our gopher today,” Hilda says, clapping Dimitri on the back. “That means restocking the booths, dropping off supplies, helping with food for breaks, that kind of thing. Marianne here is gonna need to move her couch, though, so that’s first.”

“Sorry,” Marianne says, looking down. “The mice live right beneath it, you see.”

“Marianne’s our animal whisperer,” Hilda says, in the same way someone else would say _angel._ “Report to the supply tent when you’re done, and you’re all set. We even have a spare trailer for you when you’re done with your shift.”

Dimitri smiles weakly at her, then looks back at Marianne, who is whispering quietly to her mice. 

“Right,” he says. “I suppose we’re moving a couch.”

It isn’t the worst job he’s ever had, at least. Dimitri gets to cover most of the circus by the time it opens, carrying boxes and crates while trying to avoid the curious stares of the other employees. He sees Byleth again by the sweet shop, whispering in the ear of the woeful-looking man in charge, and when they both glance his way, Dimitri shivers despite the sweat trickling down his bare back.

Claude shows up once or twice, smiling that strange smile and wearing what looks like a small white dragon on his shoulders. The dragon has to be a puppet, but its eyes follow Dimitri as he passes, and it moves so fluidly that Dimitri has to stop and stare.

“I swear,” Felix says at lunchtime, when he and Dimitri are huddled behind the big top, listening to Claude shout to a bemused audience something about a _death knight_ and a _magician who can turn the hands of time,_ “something’s off. We’re gonna wake up in white robes chanting to the mother goddess or something, just wait.”

“They seem alright to me,” Dimitri says. “Nice of them to pay us under the table, in any case. And it isn’t like anyone will find us here.”

“See?” Felix wags his sandwich at Dimitri. “You’re already thinking it. Soon you’ll be their… I don’t know. Shirtless wonder or something.”

“Shirtless wonder?” Dimitri smiles. “Oh, Felix, you do know how to charm a man.”

“Shut up,” Felix says, but he does crack a smile when Dimitri laughs, his gaze skittering sideways as though he isn’t sure if it’s allowed. Dimitri kisses him then, just because he can, and thrills at the warmth of Felix’s lips on his.

The air grows sweet with fried bread and spun sugar, and Claude shoots flaming arrows into the sky as the sun sinks below the tents of the circus. Fireflies rise from the high grass, and Dimitri helps string lights from booth to booth, giving the evening a warm, comfortable haze. Children run about with bags of goldfish and small stuffed animals, and teenagers clamber into the ferris wheel, huddling close.

“Your shift is up, you know,” Claude says, as Dimitri tries to pick out stars through the hanging lights of the circus. Claude’s puppet dragon snaps at his gold earrings, and Claude waves it away. It’s scales shine almost pearlescent in the light. “You and Felix did good work today. You can stay on longer if you want to, make a habit of it. I could always use a pair of hard workers.”

“Tempting,” Dimitri says, “but I have places to be, unfortunately.”

“Oh?” Claude hands the dragon a strip of jerky, and it pretends to eat it, which. Is impressive, really. “Where to?”

“Fhirdiad,” Dimitri says.

Claude raises his brows. “Fhirdiad, where did I… what did you say your last name was?”

“Blaiddyd.” Claude snaps his fingers, and Dimitri jumps. “What?”

“Blaiddyd enterprises.” Claude flashes him another empty smile. “You must have done something terrible to end up broke in the middle of nowhere with _that_ kind of old money.”

“Yes,” Dimitri says, and smiles wryly. “I did do something terrible. I lived.” Claude’s brows lower, and Dimitri clears his throat. “You don’t happen to know where our trailer is? It’s just, Felix and I are sorely in need of a shower, and, well, a bed.”

“Of course,” Claude says. “Follow me.”

The shower is actually a series of outdoor stalls with a hose attached, but there’s scented soap and shampoo, so neither Felix or Dimitri bother to complain, they take turns shivering under the hose while the other one holds their clothes, and run awkwardly with borrowed towels around their waists to the white and grey trailer Claude pointed out at the end of the field. It looks clean enough on the outside, with a little ladder for people who aren’t giants like Dimitri, and Dimitri sighs as he steps inside and gropes for the light.

It flicks on.

Dimitri screams. He covers his mouth before it can go far, but Felix is already crashing into him, half naked and wielding their clothes like a sack of bricks. He stops as he presses up against Dimitri, though, and stares in utter silence at the thing sitting on their bed.

***

“What the fuck is _that_ ,” Felix snarls, staring around Dimitri’s broad shoulder. “Dimitri. _Dimitri_.” 

“Felix, don’t look directly at it,” Dimitri says. “That’s how it gets its powers.” 

Dimitri’s voice is full of shaky, embarrassed amusement, but there’s a thread in there that says he might actually believe that. And honestly, Felix can’t blame him. 

The thing sitting on the bed is a doll, or maybe it’s supposed to be. It’s a clown, which seems both a little too on-the-nose, but instead of a face it just has very realistic eyes. 

Very. Realistic. 

“Why would this be in here,” Felix asks. It takes him a moment before he stomps over, grabs the thing and shakes it, fingers biting into the cheap plush material. “He did this. Claude. He looks like the type.” 

“The - the type,” says Dimitri. “To leave a terrifying clown doll on a bed in a trailer?” 

“ _Yes_ ,” Felix hisses. He shakes the doll. “Why - why would you. Ever. Make this? Or put it somewhere for other people to see?” 

“We did get a shower, at least,” Dimitri says. “I apologize for, for yelling, I was simply surprised by that...thing. Why wouldn’t someone put the rest of the face on it, though?” His eye is very wide. “It would be less awful if they had.” 

“I don’t know if that’s true,” Felix says, wincing. He places the doll on the chair in the corner. So that it’s facing the wall. He shudders, then turns around. “If we didn’t need the money, I’d burn that doll.” 

Dimitri stares at him. “What if it didn’t burn --” 

“ _No_ ,” says Felix. His mouth twitches. “This is not funny. Don’t make it funny.” He glances around, takes one of the used towels and tosses it over the doll. 

“That actually looks more terrifying now than it did before,” says Dimitri. 

“You’re not helping. Let’s just. Forget it’s there.” 

“That’s how it eats you, though,” says Dimitri. “It lulls you into a false sense of security. We’ll wake up, and it will be there. Hovering. Watching us sleep.” 

Felix walks over and hits him in the shoulder. Hard. “You’re the one who screamed. Can I just point that out.” 

Dimitri smiles, and it makes Felix want to die. He’s slightly sunburned, and sincere as he always is, and he screamed at a clown doll and is now making jokes about it. Felix wraps his arms around his neck and kisses him soundly. 

“Do you want to get dressed and maybe go see what else is going on?” 

“I think that would be a good idea,” Dimitri says, kissing him back. His chest rumbles as he laughs. “What if, Felix, when we come back, the clown doll is --” 

“Do _not_ finish that,” says Felix. “Just put on a shirt and let’s go.” 

It’s full dark when they leave the trailer, the air sticky and smelling faintly of popcorn and cotton candy. Felix startles as he feels Dimitri take his hand, and his immediate instinct is to pull away but he squashes it because it’s...nice. There’s no point in pretending he hasn’t been in love with Dimitri Blaiddyd his entire life, and they’re exchanging blowjobs in uncomfortable places. They can hold hands. Right. 

And it makes Dimitri so happy, too. Felix glances over and sees the smile on Dimitri’s face, and he wonders how this awful situation -- on the run from assassins, broke, their wallets stolen, working for a carnival that might be a cult with a haunted clown doll in their trailer -- is maybe the happiest he’s been in years. They’ve wasted so much time. 

Felix sighs, and he’s about to maybe say something he’ll regret when Dimitri tugs his hand and says, “Oh, Felix, look. It’s the. HR manager, and the sweets counter person. They have a magic show. Shall we check it out?” 

“It’s not really magic.” 

Felix jumps, turning to see a small woman with white hair and violet eyes, dressed in a black lace dress with way too much crinoline and a pair of boots with too many buckles, staring at them. For half a second he thinks it’s the girl from the bar, earlier -- El, Dimitri’s first _crush_ , ugh -- but it’s not, she just looks remarkably similar. Even her voice sounds familiar, in a way he can’t quite place.

“Yeah,” Felix says. “Magic isn’t real, we get it.” 

The girl gives them an unimpressed look. “That’s not what I meant, just that what they do, it’s not really magic. Hi. I’m Lysithea. I read fortunes. Want me to read yours?” 

“Yes,” says Dimitri. 

“No,” says Felix. He squints. “Miss Lysithea...from the call-in show?” 

“Oh. Was that you?” She eyes them both, her gaze going to their joined hands. “You’ll live happily ever after. Maybe. I don’t know. Love is stupid. Are you going in or what?” 

“Should we?” Dimitri asks her. “Is it entertaining?” 

“Has to be better than the clown,” says Felix, under his breath. 

“You’d think that, but you’d be wrong,” says Lysithea, breezily pushing past them. 

“How did she...you know, never mind,” says Dimitri, and tugs him into the tent. Felix has half a second to realize this particular tent is made of dark black instead of the cheery yellow or gold like the rest, and then they’re inside. 

The black canvas is gathered up and adorned with lights shaped like little skulls. All of the chairs are arranged in a circle around the stage, but they’re only two rows deep. The stage has two torches that look real but throw off no heat, one of those boxes that usually means someone is getting sawed in half, a stool, and the HR manager smiling placidly. 

“Please, take a seat.” 

Felix and Dimitri take a seat next to the young woman, Lysithea, who kicks her feet up on the stage. The mournful-looking man from the sweet shop is sitting on her other side, he hands over a bag of candies that she takes without commentary. 

A few other people come in, but despite the relatively busy carnival atmosphere there aren’t even enough people to fill up the already-sparse seating. 

Maybe he’s not a very good magician. Or maybe it’s about the magic of HR? Either way, Felix isn’t expecting much. 

“Hello,” the man says. “I’m Byleth. Please, let’s get started.” 

Maybe he’s a hypnotist? His voice is certainly calm enough. Felix narrows his eyes and leans in to Dimitri. “If he starts talking about the Goddess’ divine grace and counting down from ten to one, we’re leaving.” 

“Felix,” Dimitri whispers back, choking on a laugh. “It’s really not a cult. I don’t think. Anyway, yes, all right. We shall take our leave at the first hint of counting.” 

Byleth, their magician, has on a cape but no other than that, he doesn’t look much different than he did when they met with him earlier. He holds up a pack of cards, still wrapped in plastic, and hands it to one of the other intrepid souls who’ve come to see. 

“Please, open this, take a card, hold it up for, oh, three or four seconds, and put it back in the deck.” 

It’s oddly silent in the tent, the only sound being the slight crinkle of the plastic as the woman opens the deck of cards. She holds up a card, stares at it, and then puts it back in the deck and hands it over. 

A sudden wave of dizziness assails Felix, and his stomach drops like he’s on that ride outside that flips you upside down and spins around. He glances at Dimitri, who looks puzzled, like maybe he felt it, too. 

“Three of hearts,” says Byleth, to the woman. 

“Um. Yes?” she says. “That was. Huh.” 

“That was -- I wonder how he did that,” Dimitri asks. He claps, because he’s a dork. 

“You,” Byleth says, in that same pleasant, easy voice. He points at Felix. “Would you be so kind as to give back my magic coin, please.” 

“I don’t have that,” says Felix. The dizziness assails him again. He frowns. Maybe it was eating all that junk food, but they’d gotten it for free. You didn’t turn down free dinner when your wallet was stolen, even if it was comprised of too-sweet lemonade and various fried things on a stick. 

“Check your pocket,” says Byleth. 

Felix slides a hand into the pockets of his freshly-laundered jeans. His finger close over an oversized coin, and when he pulls it out and blinks dumbly at it, he sees there’s the grim visage of a reaper with a scythe on it. 

He hands it back without a word. Ice races down his spine. 

Dimitri leans forward and puts his hands on his knees, squinting up at Byleth. “How did he --” 

“Shhh,” Felix hisses. “Don’t ask.” 

There are a few more tricks, to a mostly-silent audience. Two people leave midway through, after Byleth correctly guesses one woman’s favorite book, song, childhood pet, and first car -- making Felix wonder if they’re trying to do this to get people’s security questions for their bank account or something -- and he realizes why the magic act is so sparsely attended. 

The magic is almost _too_ good, but there’s no showmanship. Just a pleasantly smiling magician performing tricks, like one of the automatons back at the Abyss. 

“I don’t know how he’s doing any of this,” Dimitri says, under his breath. “But I am now more inclined to believe you about the cult. Perhaps we should also leave.” 

“No, you should wait for the grand finale,” says Lysithea, eating her candy. “If you make it all the way through, you get a prize.” 

“Is it a prize I want?” Felix demands. 

Lysithea shrugs. “Probably not, but you can at least say you won.” 

“I will now call my assistant to the stage,” Byleth says. “Jeritza.” 

For a second, Felix thinks that’s a weird version of _abracadabra_ , until the man next to Lysithea rises quietly from his seat and climbs up on the stage. 

The sweet shop attendant is his assistant? 

Dimitri takes his hand again. Felix loses track of time for a second as he ignores the stage and thinks about the trailer, the bed, the _privacy_ they’ll have. It might be worth it to do menial chores for what is either a cult or a cursed carnival of souls straight out of a horror movie. 

Because, honesty, how did they set up all of this overnight, while he and Dimitri were asleep? 

“I’m almost convinced he might really saw that man in half,” Dimitri says, as Jeritza climbs into the box. 

“Takes too long,” says Lysithea. She offers Felix a candy. “We do the knives, now.” 

“No,” Felix says. “I know how this works. I eat that, we can’t leave.” Even though he’s already eaten. Fuck, if he’s doomed to an eternity in a carnival of the damned for eating a corn dog, someone is going to hear about it. 

Dimitri, because he’s too polite, takes one and thanks her while Byleth shows them an array of knives and explains that he’s going to plunge them in the holes on the box. Right into Jeritza. 

“Yes, beloved,” Jeritza says, dreamily. “Pierce me with your cold blades, make me bleed my heart’s blood for you!” 

“Let’s go,” a woman behind Felix says. “That man sounds _way_ too into it.” 

“Mommy, is that man really going to stab his friend?” A child of about ten or so demands, sitting across the stage, eyes wide. 

“Yes,” Jeritza says, dreamily. “He is.” 

“No, no,” the child’s mother assures him. “It’s just a magic trick, sweetie. He won’t really be hurt.” 

“But I will,” Jeritza says. “Do it, my love. _Thrust_ it into me, I am breathless waiting to squirm in agony for you!” 

“What,” Dimitri says. He’s blushing. 

Felix can’t look away as Byleth, after stroking a hand over Jeritza’s hair fondly, plunges a knife into the box. 

The dizzy feeling assails him again. Felix breathes sharply through his nose. 

“I could use some water,” Dimitri says, pressing his other hand to his forehead. “Perhaps I should not have had two of those corn dogs.” 

Have they been poisoned? 

“Mommy, I don’t feel good,” the kid says, and the mom shushes him with a terrified look at the stage and pulls him bodily out of the tent. 

“Again,” Jeritza says, and he sounds like he might be enjoying this a little too much. “Again, my love.” 

Byleth raises the knife -- which is clean, so, right, yeah, this is just… a trick -- and it glints oddly in the firelight, casting some kind of strange shadow on his face so that his pleasant, benign visage looks almost sinister. 

He plunges the knife in again. Jeritza makes a sound better suited to a video called _male in throes of natural orgasm_ on Pornhub rather than a magic trick at a carnival, and Felix grabs tight at Dimitri’s hand as the dizziness he now expects washes over him. 

“Did you feel that?” he hisses, to Dimitri, while Byleth triumphantly pulls a clean knife free of the box and Jeritza shudders in bliss. “The -- the dizzy thing?” 

“Perhaps they are pumping some kind of gas into the air.” Dimitri glances over at Lysithea. 

She shrugs. “I told you there was a reason you get a prize if you make it all the way through.” 

“Is that because of the dizziness? I thought it was the, ah, lack of showmanship.” 

“Honestly, it’s kind of both,” says Lysithea. 

“I can hear you,” says Byleth, from the stage. 

Dimitri flushes hot. “Oh, I -- yes, I’m sorry, I couldn’t do this, I’m certain, please, that was very rude of me.” 

Felix slumps in his chair and smacks his free hand on his forehead. 

“It’s all right,” Byleth says, calmly. 

“Do the one through the neck, next,” says Lysithea. 

“Yes, oh, that one,” Jeritza outright _moans_. 

“We’re done here,” says Dimitri, standing up and pulling Felix toward the entrance. “I am not watching him pretend to stab someone in the neck with a knife, even if it’s fake. Even if that man seems to -- to like it.” 

Felix digs in his heels, stopping Dimitri with an effort. “What’s the prize?” he asks Lysithea. From the corner of his eye, he sees Byleth lovingly stroking Jeritza’s cheek with the blade of the knife, which is glinting in the firelight. 

“I don’t know, actually,” Lysithea says. “No one’s ever made it to the end.” 

Byleth raises the knife high, unsmiling, looking like some priest standing before a sacrifice splayed out on an altar. 

Felix hates to lose. But in this case, he’s going to take the L. He lets Dimitri pull him out into the carnival proper, both of them gasping at the fresh air and no longer feeling dizzy. 

Behind them, they hear a scream turn into a loud, filthy moan. Someone’s clapping. 

“I think I’ve seen all of this carnival I care to see for the day,” Dimitri says, looking a little pale. “Shall we. Go back to our trailer?” 

“Yeah,” Felix says, deeply unsettled. “Let’s.” 

By the time they walk through the bustling midway, he’s feeling a little silly about his reaction to the magic show -- it’s just a collapsable knife, it has to be, so what if it looks exactly like the one he’d used that day to cut fruit with Leonie? -- and the farther they move away from that black-shrouded death tent the more he thinks he was overreacting. There’s no more dizziness, either, so that’s a bonus. 

At least, until he pushes the door open to their trailer and sees what’s there. 

The clown is back. It’s on the bed again, and this time, it’s arrayed around a basket tied with a big red bow. 

“Maybe we should sleep in the car,” Dimitri says, uneasily. “I’m starting to think the idea that this is a cult is the best-case scenario, not the worst.” 

Felix, still miffed he missed out on a prize because he foolishly thought a man was being knifed in a box, marches forward with his hands fisted at his sides. “I’m not afraid of a toy. And this is a trick, Dimitri. Obviously they knew we’d left the trailer.” 

He ignores the fact the faceless clown has been altered - before it had two eyes and no other features, but now it has one blue eye and an eyepatch -- and snatches the basket. 

There’s a pamphlet with two smiling people on the cover, and the words _what you should know about safe sex!_ emblazoned on it. Inside is a collection of condoms and lube. 

Felix puts the basket on the floor, studies the clown, and exchanges a wordless glance with Dimitri. He grabs the clown, strides toward the door, opens it, and flings it outside. He watches as it lands face-down in the dirt near the trailer. 

Dimitri peers over his shoulder. “What if it can’t --” 

“Don’t you dare say _breathe_ , Dimitri, or nothing in that basket is being used and that would be a shame,” Felix snarls, slamming the door shut. “This place might be cursed, but there’s a bed and privacy and I intend to make use of both.” 

***

Dimitri only just manages to lock the door when Felix turns on him, grabbing him by the hem of his crop-top and dragging him over to the bed. Dimitri smiles, even if the image of the clown face-down on the ground outside still lingers, and backs up until his knees hit the edge of a remarkably pliant mattress and he goes toppling onto his back.

And bounces.

Felix stares at him as Dimitri bobs slightly on the top of a massive, very wobbly waterbed, and covers his face with both hands. 

“Alright,” he says, as though to himself. “Fine. This is fine.”

Dimitri tries to scoot back on the bed, which jiggles under him, and collapses as the soft, slippery sheets slide out from under his hands. Felix just climbs on top of him, though, using his body to climb further up the bed, and Dimitri snorts a laugh as Felix curses and flops to one side. 

“Hey, baby,” Dimitri says, pitching his voice low.

“What,” Felix says.

Dimitri grins and tries to crawl across the bed towards him. He slips again, and struggles to pick himself up. “Don’t you think this is just… groovy, Felix?”

“Why are you doing this.” Felix’s mouth trembles. He presses a hand over it.

“Thought you wanted to have a swingin’ time,” Dimitri says, desperately searching his memory for the old disco albums his dad used to play. “Don’t you want to get down? _Boogie?_ ”

Felix is holding his breath, gradually turning pinker round the ears. Dimitri crawls over him and goes for the kill. 

“Can you _dig_ it?” he asks, and Felix sputters out a barking, helpless laugh as Dimitri dives in and kisses him on the neck. 

“How are you a person who _exists,_ ” Felix wheezes, as Dimitri smiles against his skin. 

“Well, you see, when two people love each other very muhhngfh,” Dimitri says, just as Felix shoves a hand over his mouth and pushes him away.

“No bad slang in bed,” he says, and Dimitri grins. “I _mean_ it. This place is cursed enough.”

Dimitri kisses him, and Felix does this… little wriggle, where he rolls his shoulders back and adjusts under Dimitri to get comfortable, and Dimitri simultaneously wants to wrap him in his arms like an oversized stuffed plush doll and fuck him into the mattress until he’s howling. It’s a strange feeling, all told, so Dimitri deals with it by biting Felix’s neck. Felix _gasps,_ so Dimitri bites him again, and then he’s pulling off Felix’s shirt so he can kiss his way down his neck and over his chest. He licks his abs, which Dimitri isn’t all too sure about at first but finds he actually quite enjoys it when Felix curses and reaches for his hair, and he drags Felix’s pants and boxer-briefs down at once, planting a kiss on his inner thigh just for the sake of it.

“You’re beautiful,” Dimitri says, and Felix covers his face with an arm. “I mean it. I want to. There are so many indecent things I want to do to you right now.”

“Oh. My gods,” Felix whispers, and Dimitri smiles down at him, this man who would not only drive cross-country for him but risk his life to keep him safe. 

It’s a little more trouble to remove his own clothes, as the bed keeps wobbling, and somewhere down the line Dimitri ends up collapsed over Felix, kissing him lazily as Felix kicks their pants off the side of the bed. He runs his thumbs over Felix’s nipples, and Felix snarls something into his mouth and wraps his thighs around Dimitri’s waist.

When Felix flips Dimitri onto his back, the bed jostles and bounces, water sloshing against the mattress beneath them.

“You’re ridiculous,” Felix says, as Dimitri smiles up at him. He runs his hands up Dimitri’s thighs. “I can’t believe this. Your sweatpants have been saying _Fuck the Church_ all day and I saw you apologize when someone _else_ dropped their funnel cake, and there are literally people out to _kill_ you but you look at me like you’re—“ He gestures at all of Dimitri. “Like you. You look like _this._ ”

“Thank you, I think.”

“I’ve wanted to fuck you since we were fifteen and you threw me in the pool,” Felix says.

Dimitri reaches up to press his hand to Felix’s chest, feeling his heartbeat thrum against his fingers. “But you loved me before that,” he says.

“Shut up,” Felix says, going red as a signal flare. “Shut up, why don’t you ever just—You liked me _first._ ” He says this as though that means anything, as though he isn’t ripping open a packet of lube with his teeth and straddling Dimitri’s waist. He leans over to kiss Dimitri properly, and Dimitri can feel his breath stutter as he slides the lube over his fingers.

“Let me,” Dimitri says, and yes, alright, they do make something of a mess as they take out another complimentary packet, forget that they should have put on the condom first, and then ignore the gift basket’s helpful guide altogether as Dimitri pushes two fingers into Felix and hears him moan against his neck. Felix grinds over his stomach as Dimitri fucks him on his fingers, and Felix barely has the presence of mind to do more than suck marks on Dimitri’s neck and groan into his ear.

“I’m gonna.” Felix clenches his hand in Dimitri’s hair. “Need to…” Dimitri grabs his hips instead as Felix sits up on his knees, reaching for Dimitri’s cock. “Fucking Blaiddyd genes, of course you’re huge.”

“Sorry,” Dimitri gasps, as Felix takes Dimitri in hand. Felix glares at him.

“Don’t fucking apologize,” he says, and, as though Dimitri has issued a personal challenge he can’t ignore, Felix sinks down on Dimitri’s cock in one slow, smooth motion. He’s tight and hot and perfect, and Dimitri tightens his grip on Felix as he grinds slowly, staring at Dimitri.

“Felix,” Dimitri says. “You’re… please move.”

Felix almost smiles, and Dimitri beams. Then Felix _does_ move, and Dimitri grabs at the waterbed as it bounces with Felix, making Dimitri’s hips move involuntarily up into him as Felix rides him. Felix leans over Dimitri, long hair sliding off his shoulders and hanging in his face, and he strokes himself between them as they shake and roll on the bed. The mattress itself jerks an inch off the frame, and Felix holds himself up with one hand on Dimitri’s chest.

“Felix.” Dimitri’s voice comes out strained and tight. “Please, I’m going to—“

“Go on, then,” Felix pants. “Come on, Dimitri, come for me, I want to see you, I want—“ Felix’s voice trails off into a moan as he comes between them, and Dimitri tries to hold him up as he fucks into him, rattling the frame of the bed. 

Felix kisses him when he comes, and Dimitri kisses him back feverishly, unwilling to let him go. They lie there a while, still gently moving with the waterbed, while Felix sighs and lets Dimitri fuss over him, kissing his brow, his eyelids, his jaw.

They decide not to sneak out to the showers again, in the end. There’s a sink and a bathroom in the trailer, and besides… Neither of them want to see if the clown doll has moved. Not that Felix says this, of course. He just glances at the window and away, and they come to an unspoken decision. 

They fall asleep tangled in the bedsheets to the distant sound of fairground music, the high, tinny ringing of bells shivering in the night air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Road Trip Mixtape, Track Four: Circus, by Britney Spears


	5. Elite Kingdom and Dragon's Lair Themed Hotel (Tailtean Plains Location)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We make no apologies for the puns. Dusty makes no apologies for sneaking Rhea/Nemesis in here, either.

The clown doll is, of course, no longer lying in the dirt when Dimitri opens the trailer door the next morning. It’s propped up on a plastic lawn chair in front of a dingy table next to the trailer window, with a lopsided smile scrawled under its hyper-realistic eyes. The animatronic dragon is curled around its shoulders, white scales glittering in the sun, staring out at them with liquid eyes that seem far too real. 

“You know,” Felix says, in a vague tone. “That thing reminds me of an alligator I saw, once.”

“What’s that?” Dimitri edges closer to the table. There’s an envelope in front of the clown doll, full to bursting, with Dimitri and Felix’s names written on the front in bold lettering.

Felix shakes his head as though shooing off flies. “I. Nothing. It’s nothing.” 

Dimitri reaches for the envelope, and the dragon hisses like a cat. It must be remote-controlled, then. He looks for a sign of Claude, but they’re alone in the line of trailers save for Marianne, who has a book that looks like an old-fashioned grimoire propped up on her knees. She glances up at them and turns her chair so they can’t read over her shoulder, and Dimitri slides the envelope open with his thumb. A heavy stack of twenties and fifties peel back under his fingers, and Dimitri numbly hands it over to Felix, who rifles through it. 

“We didn’t earn this much, surely,” Dimitri says. 

“Knowing this circus, it’s probably part of, I don’t know, organized crime,” Felix says. “Or a pyramid scheme. Along with being a cult. All they’re missing is a catalogue and a spiel about how essential oils can change your life.”

“We don’t really go for cults,” Claude says, behind them, “but I do have some snake oil for sale that’ll give you the strength of a horse.”

Felix makes an indignant noise and shifts so he’s standing between Claude and Dimitri, the money clenched in his fingers. Claude gives him a bright, vacant smile and walks over to the dragon, which… climbs up his arm, hooking its claws in his golden cloak. Dimitri shivers in the warmth of early morning, and Felix grabs Dimitri’s shirt in one hand. When Claude looks up from the dragon settling on his shoulder, his eyes are empty as glass.

“You’re welcome to stick around, of course,” he says, as Felix stumbles back into Dimitri. “But I think whatever you’re running from might’ve caught up with you. Had some guys asking about you earlier. Can’t miss them--Tall guy, black suit, gloves, with a friend who looks kind of like a golden retriever. You’ll know them when you see them.”

“I. Thank you,” Dimitri says, still staring at the dragon. 

“Or you can stay with us,” Claude says. “The Golden Deer does protect their own.”

“Sorry, we’ll pass,” Felix says, and Claude gives them another meaningless smile as Felix drags Dimitri away from the trailer, shoes squelching in the mud at the edges of the fairgrounds. The circus is being dismantled around them, tents being leveled, tarp rolling up into truck beds, equipment tossed into crates and hauled away. Dimitri has the unsettling feeling that in a few hours, the fairgrounds will be quiet and still, empty as though the circus was never there in the first place. He takes Felix’s hand, and Felix grips him tight. 

“Felix,” he says. “I’m sure he isn’t really--”

“Don’t care,” Felix says. “Do you see anyone who looks… you know. Like a golden retriever?”

“Not exactly, no,” Dimitri says. They pass through the entrance, which is being broken down piece by piece, and emerge into the half empty lot. There are a few people lingering around the trucks and cars that aren’t actively being loaded up with circus detritus, but when Felix lets out a low moan and tugs at his hand, Dimitri sees the problem immediately. 

Their car is gone.

There’s just an empty space where their car used to be, glistening slightly with a puddle of transmission fluid, and next to it, a man with red-gold hair is leaning against a red Aegir 59’ convertible while a man in a suit tugs at his gloves and glowers from under his messy black bangs. They look too polished to be hired thugs, but they don’t exactly fit with the crowd gawking at the circus or the crew shutting it down, and when they glance at Dimitri, he feels that uncomfortable shudder run through him again. He stops, and the man with the convertible pushes away from it and touches his colleague on the arm. They make as though to stroll through the parking lot, deliberately not looking over their shoulders, and Felix tugs Dimitri towards them. 

“Come on,” he says.

“Felix,” Dimitri whispers. “What are you--”

“That’s them,” Felix says. “The golden retriever and the. The other one. Which means if they’re asking about us--”

“Maybe your father?” 

“You think he’d send _them?_ Really?” Felix halts a few feet from the car, which is idling, the engine soft as a contented cat. Felix rocks on his heels. “Okay. Time to see if they’re actually who we think they are.”

Dimitri frowns at Felix. Ahead of them, the men stop, one of them turning towards the other, and Dimitri just catches a glimpse of the strap of a gun harness. “Oh. Hell.”

“Right,” Felix whispers. “Run.”

“What?” 

But Felix is already taking off, bolting straight for the car. The red-head cries out, but Felix is already jumping over the front seat and twisting the key in the ignition. 

“Felix!” Dimitri cries. 

“Get in the fucking car, Dimitri!” 

Dimitri looks at Felix, then back to the men, who are running full-tilt towards them, brows lowered. He clambers into the car, scuffing his shoes over the glossy paint, and scrambles face-first into the seat next to Felix.

“The _paint!_ ” one of the men shouts. 

“Sorry!” Dimitri shouts back.

“Why are you _apologizing,_ " Felix snarls, slamming his foot on the gas. Dimitri falls forward, stuck upside-down in the passenger’s seat with his legs flailing, fumbling for Felix as they swerve around a corner in the parking lot. A shot rings out, and Felix curses darkly and clutches the wheel with both hands. 

“Felix, we can’t,” Dimitri says, folding his body up in the seat. “They’ll--”

“What,” Felix says. “Call the cops? They wouldn’t dare. And now we have their car, and they’re stuck in a creepy fucking carnival with nowhere to go.”

Dimitri grabs for the envelope of cash and fishes out a few twenties. As they wheel past the two men, one holding a gun in his gloved hands, the other searching his pockets, Dimitri throws the twenties out of the car. They go fluttering in the air like scattered leaves. Dimitri clings to the side of the car as it roars out of the parking lot, leaving the suited man and the human golden retriever alone, staring at the cash drifting feather-like to the asphalt. 

***

“Okay,” Felix says. “Okay. Okay.” 

“You’ve -- said that, Felix.” Dimitri, who’s righted himself and is giving him worried looks from the passenger seat. “This car is a lot nicer than the other one.” 

He sounds vaguely accusatory. Felix flexes his fingers on the steering wheel. “Yeah. Look. At least we’ll know. If the. If the police show up looking for us? Then.” 

“I -- don’t mean to be obtuse,” Dimitri says. “But what will we know? That we’re car thieves?” He looks guilty again. 

“I mean. Yeah. But if there are no cops, that means they didn’t report the car stolen. And if they didn’t...that means they’re working with Cornelia and were sent to find us.” 

Dimitri is quiet for a moment. “I suppose so. I’m not sure which of these I’d prefer.” 

“Really?” Felix glances over at him. “You really just said that.” 

“Well, I’d prefer not to be a thief,” Dimitri says. “Perhaps they could tell we needed the car for something serious and are giving us the benefit of the doubt.” 

Felix only resists banging his head against the steering wheel because he’s driving and needs to see where they’re going. “Dimitri. Who in the world would be that --” he stops. He was about to say, _who in the world would be that trusting and generous_ , but he knows exactly who would be. _Dimitri_ would be that trusting and generous. 

“Maybe they thought the eighty dollars you threw out the window was a fair price for the car,” Felix says, surprised to feel his mouth tick up at the corner. 

“It was really more like a hundred,” Dimitri says. “Though I’m still not sure it won’t be like the money in that fairy tale, you know the one with the magic purse? Where you had to spend all the money by nightfall, or else you’d wake up and it would vanish.” 

Felix snorts, but then he remembers the carnival; Claude, with his empty eyes and slick smile, the clown doll, the magic show and that man moaning when the knife -- 

He clears his throat and starts driving just a little faster. “Maybe we should. Find somewhere to lay low for the night until we know if the cops are coming.” 

“You’re not really worried the money will vanish, are you? I was only teasing. There’s no such thing as magic money, Felix, it’s just a story,” says Dimitri, the man who apologized to potential assassins and threw money out of their stolen car window. 

Felix says, “What was that thing, that creature, that Claude had?” 

“What?” Dimitri pushes his hair out of his face. The convertible agrees with his height, but not his sloppy attempts at a ponytail, apparently. Felix resists the urge to pull the car over and fix it for him. “The -- puppet animatronic?” 

“You think that thing was fake?” 

“You _don’t_?” Dimitri’s voice goes all stern again. “Felix. It was a carnival. Things were engineered to look real and trick the eye and, ah.” He clears his throat and gives him a hopeful little smile. “Perhaps stopping before sundown wouldn’t be such a bad idea, after all.” 

Felix sees a billboard for something called a _Fantasy Themed Land -- Two hotels, fishing pond, mini-golf and more! Choose between a medieval suite or a dragon’s lair! Cash/Credit/Gold/Fine Jewelry accepted._

Intense. But if they’re spending magic money that’s going to disappear at dawn, might as well stay somewhere a little flashy. 

“You don’t really think that creature was real, do you?” Dimitri asks, suddenly, when Felix is taking the exit for the fantasy complex. “It could be some sort of cat, I suppose.” 

“It had wings, Dima.” 

The nickname makes Dimitri smile. “Perhaps it was some kind of costume on a real animal? Some rare type of ferret.” 

Felix stares at him. Dimitri stares back. 

“Let’s just forget about the carnival,” says Felix. 

“Whatever you say, Felix,” Dimitri says, leaning back in his seat. “Whatever you say.” 

***

The Elite Kingdom and Dragon’s Lair -- Tailtean Plains Location -- is not what Felix was expecting, but if he’s honest, he’s almost used to that at this point. Nothing about this trip has been anything at all like he expected.

Like the Golden Deer carnival, it’s set in a field back off the main road. Unlike the carnival, it’s clearly a permanent establishment. Also unlike the carnival, any cohesion it might have had is completely ruined by the fact it looks like two separate themed attractions meeting on a battlefield; a faux-medieval style keep versus a cartoonish, large white dragon with an open maw and flared wings. 

“Not very accurate, is it?” Dimitri says, as Felix parks the car and hits the button to put the convertible top up. 

“I don’t know,” Felix says, staring. And here he didn’t think anything could weirder than the carnival. “That looks like a dragon to me.” 

“I meant the medieval keep,” Dimitri says, because he’s a huge nerd. He points. “That style of turret wasn’t popular in Fodlan’s medieval period, you know, it was a later construction that became more prevalent once cannons and gunpowder were invented.” 

“How’d it work on dragons?” Asks Felix, opening his door. 

“Well, those aren’t real,” says Dimitri. “Though I’m. Starting to think maybe...hmm.” He puts a hand on his forehead, shielding himself from the late afternoon sun. 

The way the sun sets it makes it look a bit like the dragon is breathing fire from its wide, open mouth. “What?” Felix asks. 

“It’s only that. It looks a bit like Claude’s puppet.” 

“I thought that was a rare breed of ferret in a costume,” Felix says. “Maybe that’s what this is.” He nods at the dragon. 

“Rather large ferret,” says Dimitri, demurely. 

Felix snorts. Then he laughs. He doesn’t mean to, but the entire situation is just so ridiculous. “Let’s hope there aren’t any clown dolls.” 

Dimitri shudders. “I’d enjoy forgetting about that.” 

“Yeah,” says Felix, far too fondly. “Let’s go.” 

The Elite Kingdom and Dragon’s Lair has a main office that is split between the two sides -- one half is the faux-stone of the medieval keep, and the other is stucco made to look like some kind of earthen mound. It’s incredibly jarring considering there’s only one door. 

_Pull for dragons. Push for knights._

“You’ll want to be careful!” 

Startled, Felix turns and glances as a young woman with corkscrew green curls comes bounding out of -- somewhere -- and rushes up to them. She clasps her hands like she’s praying. “Please, good sirs, I hope your travels here have been well! But do know there is an important choice you must make, ‘ere you enter the...main office building!” 

Dimitri glances sidelong at Felix. He has no concept of an inside voice. “Is this part of the...theme, then?” 

“Oh, no, no!” The girl laughs, but it’s a little wild. “It’s only that, you see, my, ah. Aunt and uncle, they are very serious about the part where you have to choose a side!” 

“A side of the...door?” Dimitri asks, puzzled. 

“Well, yes! That will decide, you realize, which part of the attraction you’ll give your loyalty! Your, ah. Patronage! That’s what I meant!” She smiles at them very brightly. “Would you rather be a supporter of dragons, or the knights who viciously hunt them and steal their treasure, and wear their skins as - as shoes!” She shivers, but with a look of such glee on her face that Felix honestly can’t tell if she’s delighted or horrified. 

Dimitri smiles at her. “All right, well, which do you think is best?” 

“Oh!” The young girl beams, but there’s something a little frantic in it. She laughs, wildly. “I couldn’t possibly choose that for you.” 

“Of course,” Dimitri assures her. “But which one is the best?” 

“Ha, ha, ha!” The girl laughs, but she’s twisting her hands together like she’s more nervous than amused. “There’s so many factors one has to consider. Are you more the, the knightly type or the type to be impressed by the wisdom of centuries-old magnificent creatures?” 

“Um,” says Dimitri. 

“Don’t knights slay dragons?” Felix asks. 

“Traditionally! They also, sometimes,” the girl says, shifty eyed, “sometimes befriend them. Or even. Marry them and open inns for weary travelers, with them.” 

Felix squints. “What?” 

“It’s been known to happen,” she says, her voice going a little tight. “In some of the more obscure texts.” 

“Maybe if the knight is trying to trick the dragon,” says Felix, playing along because it seems they have no other choice. “Make it easier to slay.” 

“You monster!” says the girl, who is clearly on team dragon. She looks at Dimitri. “Would thou, brave sir knight, save us from the foul trickery of your honorless brother-in-arms?” 

“Oh, he’s not my brother,” Dimitri assures her. “He’s my boyfriend. But I’ll keep him away from the dragons.” Dimitri bows at her, and Felix is too busy having a quiet, dignified emotional crisis over _he’s my boyfriend_ to say anything in defense of his dragon-tricking ways. 

“My name is Dimitri,” he says, because apparently Felix’s boyfriend -- _Felix’s boyfriend_ \-- doesn’t care about handing his name out like a party favor to all and sundry, even strange green-haired girls who are overly invested in plaster theme-park dragons. 

“Flayn,” the girl says. “Please, Sir Dimitri, go right through the dragon entrance, you’ve proven yourself a friend to us all!” 

“Us?” says Felix, blinking. 

“To the knights with you,” Flayn huffs, pointing to the other side of the door. 

They approach the doors. Dimitri pulls, Felix pushes, and they end up inside the same large room, still split down the middle. Felix’s side looks like the interior of a stone keep -- complete with flickering torches on the wall -- and Dimitri is standing in a cave with the same torches and a lot of leafy plants that look a little too waxy to be real. 

There are two people behind the desk. One, directly in front of Felix, is a man with impossibly broad shoulders and a shock of white hair half pulled back in a ponytail, with a matching beard. He has a wicked scar on the side of his face and yellow eyes like a cat. 

He says something. Felix can’t think or hear anything that isn’t _he’s my boyfriend_ but luckily, Dimitri is talking to a woman with lovely green hair, a soft smile, and cool eyes, who’s smirking like she won some kind of eternal conflict just by having Dimitri approach her side of the desk. 

“Hello, welcome,” the woman says. “I’m Rhea. Please, are you interested in one of our experience packages?” 

“Experience packages,” says Dimitri. “I...am not sure, but we would like a room.” 

“We,” Rhea says, sweetly. “Who’s we?” 

“My, ah.” Dimitri makes a vague motion toward Felix. “Boyfriend.” 

That word again. _That word again._ Rendering him speechless, standing in front of a mountain of a man who looks like he walked right out of a -- well. Ancient castle. 

“I don’t see anyone else,” Rhea says. Her voice sounds like candy. 

Felix blinks. 

“Well?” the man barks, and his voice sounds like gravel. “You want a room or don’t you?” 

“I --” Felix and Dimitri exchange a glance. Are they -- are they trying to pretend they don’t see both of them, right there? “Yeah. We do.” 

“Who’s we?” the man grumbles, like thunder. 

This is ridiculous. Felix says, “There are two of us here. You do see that, don’t you?” 

Dimitri frowns at him, like maybe Felix is being rude by pointing out what is glaringly obvious. “We would like a room, yes, and together, please, if possible.” 

“Well, which did you want? The treacherous, beautiful beast side, or the valiant knight side?” The man demands. “We have ten elite suites, she’s only got a few left of _hers_.” 

“And whose fault is that?” Rhea mutters. “What my nemesis means is,” she says, and Felix is taken aback at someone using the word _nemesis_ in actual conversation, “the majestic creature or the cowardly, _lying_ piece of --” 

“I understand there is some kind of contest,” Dimitri says, raising his voice and clearly over it, “but we really would just like a room. Whichever is easiest would be just fine, thank you.” 

“Here,” the man says, with a glower at the woman that turns into a smirk, dangling a key out on one finger. “Take this room. _We_ won’t be needing it.” The smirk turns into a leer. “Tonight, anyways.” 

“Great,” Felix says, and takes the key while Dimitri pays in cash -- a lot of it, too, this room better be nice -- for their stay. 

The keychain looks like it’s made to resemble the vertebrae of a spine. At the end is a key, but there’s a scale design on it. They head out of the main office and walk around to room 91, which, like the main building, is the only one of the rooms that seems to try and incorporate both themes in one. 

“What was up with that, do you think,” Dimitri asks, as Felix opens the door to their room. “Were those two an -- mmph.” 

Felix shoves him in, pushes him up against the door -- useful for closing it -- and kisses him. 

“Ah,” Dimitri says, and smiles against Felix’s mouth. “The theme really works for you, does it?” 

“You called me your boyfriend,” Felix says, fisting his hands in Dimitri’s shirt. He shakes him for good measure, not that it does much. 

Dimitri’s smile is impossibly tender and a little sheepish all at once. “Well. Is that -- is that wrong? Would you prefer I not? Shall I call you a, what was it the man at the desk said, a _valiant knight_? I hardly think you’re a lying son-of-a--” 

Felix kisses him again. “It’s fine.” It’s more than fine. He’s been on this strange trip with Dimitri for what is, in reality, less than two weeks but it feels like years, and they’re running out of money they received working for a man who put a ferret in a dragon costume and are wearing clothes they bought in a haunted doll museum and _are stealing cars belonging to the people who might be trying to kill them_ and yet…

If Felix has ever been this happy in his life, he’s not sure when. 

Dimitri’s big hands settle at his hips, and he lifts Felix up slightly so they can kiss properly, since Felix refuses to go on his tiptoes to do it, no matter how much he loves the impossibly tall, dragon-loving asshole who is his boyfriend. 

“I’m not going to let them hurt you,” Felix mumbles, into Dimitri’s mouth. 

“I’m not going to let them hurt you, either,” says Dimitri, and gently returns him to his feet. “There’s a bed, if you’re in the...ah. My. This is, um.” He starts to laugh. “We should come back here, once this mess is cleared up.” 

Only Dimitri would refer to assassination attempts and a murder plot as _a mess_. Felix, half-hard and eager to forget about all of it, turns -- and stares. “What the fuck.” 

The room looks like someone built a stone crypt in a cave, but instead of plaster, there’s a scent that smells like actual dirt -- the cool, soft kind you find in actual caves. The whole room is domed, with the window resembling the kind you’d find in a fairy-tale castle with a bored, pining maiden or lad behind a window, staring absently onto the windswept moors or something. The iron bars are real, which is disturbing. 

But not as disturbing as the bed. 

“Do you think,” Dimitri says. “That can’t be. It’s not. They’re not really?” 

“That’s not a dragon outside, and these are not bones,” says Felix. He crosses his arms over his chest. “No.” 

Dimitri, looking fascinated, walks over and runs his hand over the bedframe. It’s a king bed, which is the largest they’ve had the chance to sleep in since this whole thing started but also, _the frame looks like it’s made out of bones_. “Why would anyone want --” 

“No,” Felix says, again. 

Dimitri presses on the mattress. “Not a waterbed. Though if it was, I’d have to wonder if it was filled with --” 

“Finish that sentence and we’re sleeping in the car, Boar.” 

Dimitri flashes a grin at him. “And here I thought you’d appreciate all this room for me to bone you, Felix.” 

Felix stares up at the domed ceiling, idly noticing there are plants growing out of it. Maybe. He doesn’t know what is real anymore and what isn’t. Except Dimitri’s terrible puns, which are all too real. And funny. His lips twitch. “Maybe I want to do the boning this time.” 

“You wish to bone me in the bone bed, do you? I suppose I could be all right with that. I did bring the supplies from the carnival.” Dimitri’s voice is full of fond amusement. “And the pamphlet, in case you need instructions.” 

“I’ll show you who needs instructions,” Felix growls, and forgets about Dimitri’s bad puns, the bones, the weird girl outside, the plants on the ceiling and the giant plaster dragon shrieking sunfire into the distance. 

He pushes Dimitri down and kisses him, and as weird as the bedframe is at least the mattress is comfortable, one of those memory foam kinds that Felix has at home and is never going to take for granted again. But he really could be on a waterbed full of blood for all he cares about it, grabbing Dimitri’s shirt and pulling it off, kissing him like he himself might turn into nothing but bones if he doesn’t get them naked. 

Dimitri’s body is warm and hard beneath him, and for a few seconds as Dimitri helps him strip, Felix considers changing his mind and asking Dimitri to pound him into the mattress, to help him forget the low-level anxiety and fear that woke him up last night in a cold sweat. But maybe they can do that later -- as long as no one finds the car, they’re fine. In the morning they’ll drive on to Felix’s house, try and explain what they’ve learned to his father. But tonight, they have privacy and a room -- as weird as it is -- and no reason to leave it, no reason to do anything but fall into each and get lost for just a little while. 

Felix, still restless and hyped up from hearing Dimitri use the word _boyfriend_ , is full of too many feelings. And as usual, he finds it much easier to express them by kissing Dimitri senseless, biting down his perfect chest and rubbing his face against Dimitri’s abs like an affectionate cat than say _I love you_ or _this is all I’ve wanted for years_ or _I used to think I was some kind of bad luck, or maybe my family was, and that’s why terrible things always happened and keep happening when we’re around each other but I don’t care, I want you and I’ll fight all the bad guys and ferrets in dragon costumes and actual dragons and knights I have to, so I can have this, have you. Forever._

“Felix?” 

Felix has his face pressed to Dimitri’s thigh, and he’s crying. Not a lot, but enough that of course Dimitri notices. Dimitri always did notice, when they were kids. Never laughed or mocked him for being sensitive, just distracted him with a smile or a bad joke or a kind word, which he’s been doing this entire time, as patient with him now as he’s always been. Despite everything he’s lost, everything that’s happened to him, he’s petting Felix’s hair gently and, if Felix knows him as well as he thinks, getting ready to make a horrible pun about the room they’re in just so Felix will laugh or be annoyed instead of emotional. 

Not because Dimitri can’t handle the emotions, but he knows how much Felix hates it. 

“This is such a nice room, isn’t it, perhaps we can make the _knight_ , ah, _drag-_ on and --” 

“Shut up,” Felix says, into Dimitri’s thigh. “I’m sorry I...left you, made you think I. I didn’t even. Like you.” He breathes out a hot breath against Dimitri’s warm skin. “I do. Like you. Just maybe not your jokes when we’re in bed.” 

“You like them more than you pretend you do,” Dimitri says. 

“I’m literally crying, Dima.” 

“Not because of my jokes,” says Dimitri. He tugs on Felix’s hair. “I missed you, too. And I. Should have reached out, but I wasn’t...I didn’t want to hurt you. Remind you of what you lost.” 

“You lost someone, too,” says Felix, softly, pressing a kiss to Dimitri’s thigh before he risks a glance up. 

Dimitri is smiling down at him, sweet and lovely, his head cradled on a pillow with iridescent fabric made to look like scales. “And now I’ve found someone again.” 

“Ah. Ugh. Maybe the puns were better,” says Felix, eyes closing against the sight of him, all the feelings he’s still not sure how to handle. 

“Certainly. I can tell you that this place certainly has a _lair_ for the dramatic --” 

Felix bites him. Hard. But he also laughs, because that one was pretty clever. 

Felix climbs on top of him and kisses him, rubs against him lazily until Dimitri’s puns have fallen away and turned into panting, desperate breaths and Felix has channeled all his overwhelming emotions into need and desire. He grabs Dimitri’s shoulders and ruts against him mindlessly until Dimitri gasps out, “Felix, I’m -- I want to come with you inside me,” and makes him stop. 

The bedding is silky and too-slick but Felix eventually gets situated with Dimitri’s legs spread and his knees bent, one of the weird pillows beneath his hips to tilt his hips up. For a few seconds as Felix presses himself inside Dimitri’s tight heat, he thinks he should have done this with Dimitri on his hands and knees...not because the position is difficult, but because Dimitri’s face is so open, so honest, that watching him while Felix fucks him is so very nearly too much. 

His hand is still sticky with the remnants of lube as Felix strokes Dimitri’s cock, trying to time it with his somewhat graceless thrusts -- he’s trembling, shaking from the sheer force of how much Felix wants him, the beautiful aching sight of Dimitri falling apart beneath him, writhing on the iridescent bedding and moaning Felix’s name in his lovely deep voice. 

As wound up as he is, it’s no surprise when Felix comes first, falling forward and catching himself with a hand on the bed -- or trying, but he’s weak from the rush of his orgasm and shaky from pleasure and emotion, and he slips and nearly lands on top of Dimitri instead. 

Dimitri pulls him the rest of the way down, legs locked tight around Felix’s hips to keep his cock inside and his hands on Felix’s face as he kisses him, groaning into his mouth as he rubs himself off against Felix’s stomach. 

Felix lays with his head on Dimitri’s chest, listening to his heart as it starts to gradually slow. They’re both sweaty and in need of a shower, Felix’s stomach is grumbling and he knows this is a brief respite but he doesn’t care. 

“At least there’s not a clown this time,” Felix mumbles, into the sharp jut of Dimitri’s collarbones. 

“I love you, Felix,” says Dimitri. “And perhaps there is somewhere we could have pizza.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Road trip mixtape track five: In League With Dragons, by the Mountain Goats


	6. Every Now and Then I Fall Apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turn around, bright eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (CW: mild violence, non-explicit)

There’s a complimentary breakfast waiting for them in the morning, with bits of toast cut out into knight and dragon shapes in a dogged commitment to the theme. Dimitri beheads them just to make Felix laugh, and sits at the window while Felix scrubs himself off in the shower.

Tonight, they’ll reach the Fraldarius home, and they’ll explain everything to Rodrigue. Dimitri isn’t sure how he should feel about that, running to an adult to make it better like a small child with a scrape on their knee, but he knows, deep down, that he can’t exactly go charging into Cornelia’s office on his own. When his father died, it felt like everyone started drawing away from Dimitri out of embarrassment—Gilbert, who should have been Dimitri’s guardian, ran off to find himself, and the only one of his friends who didn’t look at him sidelong was Dedue, who would probably be here right now if it weren’t for the fact that he is already in Fhirdiad with his moms, waiting for Dimitri to arrive. 

Rodrigue was one of the only adults who didn’t avoid him. Rodrigue and Cornelia. Uncle Rufus barely even remembered to send him a birthday card. 

Dimitri dunks his headless knight into a dish of butter and stares out the window, where the green-haired girl from the reception room is casting a fishing line into a pool. The pool features a slide shaped like a water serpent, but it’s old and covered in a thin film of what looks like moss, and the pool itself is filled with dark water and framed by worrying _Keep Out_ signs. Flayn is dressed like she’s ready for a swim, though, complete with a two-piece swimsuit with flounces, and she is so focused on her lure that she doesn’t notice the man running up behind her with a giant towel. He wraps her up in it, looking around as though there are invisible brigands waiting to carry her off, and Flayn throws her fishing rod to the ground and storms off, shouting incoherently.

“Hey.” Dimitri turns to smile up at Felix, who blushes a furious pink. “You ready to go?”

“Unlikely,” Dimitri says. “But let’s give it a shot.”

They drop the key off at the front office, where the scarred man and the woman with pale green hair look like they’re one step away from either jumping each other or _jumping_ each other, and while Dimitri isn’t entirely sure they heard him thank them for the breakfast, Felix grabs him before he can clear his voice and try again. They step out into the brilliant sunlight, Dimitri in his crop-top and _Fuck the Church_ sweatpants, Felix in the Golden Deer uniform t-shirt, and squint at the corvette they stole from a hitman in the carnival parking lot.

“You know,” Dimitri says. “A few weeks ago, my most pressing concern was fixing the coffee-maker.”

Felix laughs hoarsely, and reaches for Dimitri’s hand. He takes it, and they stand there a while, breathing in the cool wind off the hills, listening to the sound of trucks passing by along the lonely road to Fhirdiad. 

“I’m glad I’m here,” Felix says. Dimitri stares at him. “I mean. I’m glad I came. That my dad made me drive you. I’m glad you weren’t alone out there.”

“So am I,” Dimitri says, because he knows if he says _I love you,_ again, here and now, Felix is probably going to hunch in the driver’s seat for the next four hours, staring ahead at the road in abject horror at his own feelings. He squeezes Felix’s hand, and Felix takes a short, shaky breath. 

“Right,” he says. “Let’s see if Dad’s home.”

When they clamber into the corvette, Dimitri turns on the radio to an old station they used to play when they were kids, riding their bikes along the walking paths behind the Fraldarius house. They stop for gas, where Felix finds an energy drink that Dimitri is pretty sure was discontinued when they were teenagers, which he inhales in less than three minutes as Dimitri drums his fingers on the door to the beat of his father’s favorite rock song. 

An hour later, Dimitri props his feet in the grass as Felix stands behind the bushes on the side of the road.

“We could have stopped at that buffet a while back,” Dimitri says. “I did ask.”

“Shut up,” Felix says. 

“Nice flowers, though,” Dimitri says. Felix follows his gaze to a field bearing the rubble of what used to be a 24-hour food mart, swarmed now with violet wildflowers. The flowers bow in the breeze, and petals and bits of detritus swirl around the gap that used to be a sliding glass door. They stare at it for a minute before Felix makes a soft sound and fumbles for his buttons. 

“Can’t believe you made me stare at a field with my dick in my hand,” Felix says, throwing himself back into the driver’s seat. Dimitri hands him a to-go bottle of sanitizer, and Felix rolls his eyes. 

Felix presses a button on the dash. “Maybe whoever owns this thing has a streaming account,” he says.

“Felix, we can’t just--”

“One, he’s probably out to kill us. Two, we stole his car. Pretty sure listening to his playlists isn’t going to make it worse.” Felix swipes to the FE-Online Playlists screen. “Pick one that looks nice.”

Dimitri squints at the screen. “Ah. Felix.”

“What.”

“There’s. A new one. A new playlist. Made yesterday.”

Felix glances down at the dashboard and goes still. There on the screen is the newest playlist, titled: 

_TO THE GENTLEMEN WHO ABSCONDED WITH MY VEHICLE_

“Oh, hell,” Felix says. 

“This is actually rather clever,” Dimitri says, scrolling through the songs. “Look, the first title is _Stop._ Then _Turn Around, Treat My Baby Nice, Don’t Hurt My Baby, My Girl is a Treasure, Danger, Turn Around (Total Eclipse Of The Heart), Turn Around, Turn Around…_ ” He frowns. “There’s quite a number of those. And _Big Sister’s Watching You,_ at the end. Big Sister. What do you think he means, Big Sister?”

“Cornelia, probably,” Felix mutters. “Try _Workout Playlist_ instead.”

“There’s also _Songs to Cry to._ ”

Felix huffs out a laugh. “Okay. That one.”

They do play the To The Gentlemen playlist, eventually. Even Felix gets into the chorus when Dimitri starts drumming on the door. 

“Turn around, bright eyes,” Dimitri sings, as the wind roars past them, ruffling their hair and making the bag of trash he’s started at his feet jostle around. 

“No,” Felix mouths, not daring to look Dimitri in the eye.

“Every now and then I fall apart!”

“Doofus,” Felix whispers. Dimitri beams.

“And I need you now tonight,” Dimitri croons. Felix‘s eyes roll heavenwards.

“And I need you more than ever,” blasts out over the streets, as the sun sets over the city of Fhirdiad in the distance, turning the sky a magnificent violet and gold. 

“And if you’ll only hold me tight,” Dimitri says, leaning over to kiss Felix on the shoulder. As he does, he catches a glimpse of a motorcycle in the distance, turning off on the same exit. Long hair flies back from under the helmet, and Dimitri squints, making out a second figure on the back of the bike. There was a bike near the car, wasn’t there, at the carnival?

“Don’t panic,” Dimitri says, into Felix’s ear, “but I think we’re being followed again.”

“Fuck.” Felix turns off the headlights, but they’re still in a bright red car on an empty road, so Dimitri hangs on as Felix veers sharply to the left. The motorcycle speeds up behind them, but Felix and Dimitri know the roads around the Fraldarius house better than anyone, and they take side streets, hide behind abandoned fish shacks, and skirt the edges of a small patch of undeveloped land as they listen for any sign of a bike motor.

When they finally make it to the house, the radio is off, their hair is a mess, and Felix and Dimitri are practically crouching on the edges of their seats. 

“Okay,” Felix says. “Change of plans. I go in there, I get Dad, and we tell him on the way to the police station. Got it?”

“I’m coming with you,” Dimitri says. Before them, the three story Fraldarius house lies dark, save for a single light in what Dimitri remembers as Rodrigue’s study. The grass in the yard is scraggly with the salt off the ocean a few miles away, and the old swingset is still there, nestled in the high grass. 

“Stay here,” Felix says. “If you see the bike, lean on the horn and we’ll run for it.” He pushes open the door and stares up at his old house, running a hand through his messy hair. “Well. This is gonna be awkward.”

“I believe in you,” Dimitri says. Felix flashes him a wary smile and strides off towards the house. He unlocks the front door--Dimitri smiles when he sees him fetch the key out of the flower pot like always--and disappears into the dark foyer of his childhood home.

Dragonflies dart through the high grasses as Dimitri waits, listening to the distant hush of the ocean. He and Felix used to push each other off that swingset all the time, trying to fight for the best swing, while Glenn laughed from the safety of the tree house. He considers, briefly, getting up to sit on that swing again, to feel the earth push away from him, and Dimitri reaches for the door.

The light in Rodrigue’s study goes out.

Something clicks behind him.

“Alright,” a voice says, and Dimitri twists in his seat to find a man standing there who _isn’t_ one of the men from the carnival. He’s older, dark-haired and scarred down one side of his neck, and he holds a gun in one hand. He gestures at Dimitri with the other. “How about we get out the car, kid, and we don’t make a mess all over that nice leather, yeah?”

A door slams in the house, and something shatters. Dimitri’s chest tightens, and he can taste the copper of adrenaline, sharp on his tongue. 

“Mother _fucker,_ ” someone shouts, and that’s Felix, that’s _Felix,_ being dragged out through the back yard, into the trees, that’s _Felix--_

“Felix,” Dimitri says.

“That’s his name? A fucking shit is what he is,” says the man with the gun. “Cornelia asked us to bring him to her special. So why don’t you just--”

Dimitri looks at the ignition, where the keys still hang, letting the engine idle. Fury roars up through his throat and behind the hollow of his missing eye, which had burned through when Cornelia arranged the death of his father, of Glenn, of a van full of people who shouldn’t have died on the sweltering asphalt all those years ago. Dimitri doesn’t even hear his own shout as he slides into the driver’s seat and turns the key.

A bullet cracks the windshield, but Dimitri is already slamming the car into reverse. It hits the man with a sick, wet thud, and Dimitri doesn’t even take the time to watch the man’s body tumble across the driveway before he puts both hands on the wheel and stares into the woods. 

Headlights blare through the trees, and a van bursts out of one of the biking paths, scattering branches. 

Dimitri’s fingers curl on the wheel. Years of throwing up on the side of the road every time he climbed into the passenger’s seat, of the terror that freezes him in his sleep, leaves him tense and chilled every time a car comes towards them from the opposite lane, is pushed back by the sudden, horrible knowledge that Felix has been taken, that Felix is being sent to _her._

For the first time since he was fourteen, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd sits behind the wheel of a car, pulls it out of reverse, and _drives._

***

Dimitri likes to think of himself as a law-abiding man. 

He likes to think that he follows certain unspoken societal rules, that he’s polite, that he doesn’t take up too much space, that he always stops to check under cars for kittens in winter and has most definitely fostered more than one just because the rescue office assistant looks a little overwhelmed. 

But since he got into Felix’s car on his way to Fhirdiad, Dimitri has broken any number of laws, not the least of which was grand theft auto, and as he navigates his stolen corvette through the streets like, well, a fourteen year-old without a learner’s permit, he feels a dark little thrill when he steps on the gas on a yellow light and swerves around a truck to keep in view of the van that has Felix. 

It’s a black van, sleek and new, and whoever is driving it clearly knows how to stay within the lines, which is unfortunately more than Dimitri’s limited experience. Dimitri keeps his foot on the gas and leans on the horn as he _blazes through a red light like a common criminal,_ and he punches on the Gentlemen playlist and turns the volume as high as he possibly can. 

_You just walk in, I make you smile,_ the Spice Girls croon, as Dimitri veers around a corner with a scream of tires. 

“The hell are you doing!” someone shouts, as Dimitri rockets over a traffic cone. 

_Can’t win, you’re always right behind me,_ the girls on the radio cry.

Dimitri wishes he’d taken a moment to steal that man’s gun, but he’ll have to make do with what he has. If he gets close enough, maybe he can ram the van. Drive it off the road. 

_Don’t you know you’re going too fast, ooh, too fast!_

The corvette bumps over a pothole, and Dimitri flies, just for a moment, his stomach lurching as the wheels lift off the pavement.

 _Stop right now, thank you very much!_ the girls sing, as Dimitri nearly swerves into oncoming traffic, turning his head so he can look at the red and black motorcycle drawing even with him. Hell. Another one. 

_I need somebody with a human touch!_

Dimitri steels himself to drive them off the road, but the person on the back of the bike takes off her helmet and stands up, holding onto the driver for balance.

_Hey, you!_

Dimitri nearly drives into the shoulder of the road.

 _Always on the run!_

Edelgard’s snow white hair flies in the breeze as she braces herself on the bike, and Dimitri shouts as she flings herself full-body onto the car. She nearly slides off, but scrabbles for the back seat and drags herself into it, her long hair in her face. 

_Doo doo doo doo,_ the Spice Girls cry, in chorus, as Edelgard drops into the seat. _Doo doo doo doo._

“What. The, and I apologize, but, the _fuck,_ ” Dimitri says. 

“No time,” Edelgard says. “Keep your eye on the road, Dimitri. That’s Cornelia’s van you’re following, yeah?”

“How do you. How do you _know_ that?” Dimitri asks. Edelgard snarls and jerks his chin back to the road. “They have Felix, El.”

“Shit. That’s the irritable one you fucked in my bathroom, right?”

Dimitri doesn’t answer. The driver of the motorcycle weaves in front of them, keeping pace with the van. 

“So Dimitri,” Edelgard says, “you know how I, uh. How my family is kind of rich?”

“What,” Dimitri says, “does this have to do with--”

“Fuck’s sake, Dimitri. Fine. Look, you’re after Cornelia? Well, get in line, because half the families in the organized crime web of fucking Faerghus are after her, and me and mine were just tightening the noose when _you_ had your little accident.” Edelgard tosses her hair. “So I called up my contacts with the Golden Deer family, had them keep an eye on you--”

“The Golden--The _circus?”_ Dimitri asks. 

“Eye on the road, sunshine. Yes. Obviously. Why do you think they… That’s Claude on the motorcycle, Dimitri.”

Dimitri squints at the bike. The driver is wearing a helmet, but his jacket is pretty bulky, and when it flaps open in the wind, Dimitri can just see the white head of his… his lizard creature… poking out to hiss at the van beside him. 

“Oh,” Dimitri says, softly.

Edelgard sighs. “I’m the one who stole your pretty boy’s wallet, Dimitri. And Claude’s the one who tried to get you in touch with my boys. Except he had to be cryptic about it, so you stole their car, which. Ferdinand won’t be happy about that windshield.”

“I’ll pay for it when I get Felix back,” Dimitri says, tightly. “And when Cornelia is dead.”

“Easy,” Edelgard says. “We’ll get your man back, Dima. I promise.” She frowns at him. “You really didn’t notice? We had people tailing you across half of Faerghus, Dimitri.”

“Maybe I was distracted,” Dimitri says. He swerves around a corner, nearly hitting the median, and growls under his breath. “We’ll never catch up with them at this rate.”

“Sure we will,” Edelgard says. She unzips her leather jacket, revealing a pair of guns in shoulder holsters, and stands up on the passenger’s seat of the car. She draws one of the guns, leveling it at the van. “You keep this thing steady, and I’ll handle the rest.”

***

“She’s going to _fuck you up_ ,” the guy says, from the front of the van. “And I’m gonna love hearing you scream.” 

Felix stares at the back of the man’s head and wonders if he got his bad-guy dialogue straight out of a script of a low-budget action film. Not to say that he’s not concerned, he is. Being jumped and tied up and flung into the back of a van isn’t exactly soothing. But it’s hard to really take _I’m fucking love hearing you scream_ seriously. 

“You hear me, brat?” 

“Sure,” Felix says. He’s lying on his side, and his hair is a tangled mess in his face, tickling his nose. It’s as annoying as Mr. Henchman’s B-movie dialogue. Doesn’t he know that the guy who gleefully details his whole evil plan never lives in the third act? 

“First, see, I’m gonna make you look for a nice long time at a picture my buddy’s going to send me of your boyfriend with his brains blown out,” Henchman says, sounding cheerful. “While I put a plastic bag over your head and you suffocate.” 

“You need fucking therapy,” Felix says, but his heart pounds with dread at the thought of Dimitri -- 

_Don’t. You have to get out of this. Dimitri would have gotten away. Fuck, please let him get away._

The panic starts to rise, and Felix can hear his own breathing start to go fucked up and too fast. This isn’t going to help anyone, so he needs to calm down and _think_. 

“Should get that photo any minute now. Second you hear that phone notification, that’s when you’ll know he’s fucking dead.” The henchman laughs. 

Despair is a yawning black pit in his stomach. _I never said it, did I say it? That I loved him, too? I just made a joke, or told him to be quiet, or pushed his face away. Why didn’t I -_

“And you’ll --” 

“Die, yeah, I got it,” Felix snaps. He’s trying to have a moment, here, will this guy shut up? He’s shifting his hands behind him, trying to get the ropes undone, because Henchman was as bad at hogtying as he was not sounding like a character out of central casting. 

Also, Felix’s fingers are shaking. But being an asshole about the Henchman and his chuckling, over-the-top evil dialogue is a lot easier than giving in to the panic threatening to overwhelm him. 

His heart is pounding so hard that he can barely catch his breath, but he’s almost got his wrists free. If he can just. Just do that, and then...then, something, he’ll figure it out, but he can’t _think_ past the awful, sick horror of _please please please don’t let me hear a phone notification_ and -- 

There’s the sound of gunshots, and Felix’s heart goes from racing to almost stopping so fast he sees his vision white out. That was -- no, it can’t end like this, it can’t -- 

“What the fuck was that,” Henchman snarls, and Felix realizes that unless he really _is_ the worst bad guy in history and set his notifs to sound like gunshots...those were actual _gunshots_. 

Felix would like to make some kind of quip about _how about that notification, motherfucker_ , but he doesn’t know if this development is good or bad, only that gunshots are very rarely in the _good_ column. 

“The --” Henchman doesn’t finish, as then there’s a commotion and something white flashes into the driver’s side through the open window. Henchman curses, the -- thing -- hisses, and there’s another round of gunshots before the van suddenly spins out and goes careening with a terrible noise that makes Felix flash immediately back to the accident with Dimitri -- when was that, just weeks ago? It feels like years. It feels like yesterday. 

_They’d been driving down the road, Felix at the wheel, steadfastly ignoring Dimitri in the passenger seat, big and gorgeous and so earnest it bled through like cologne._

_Felix tense and wary, still not quite used to the new car, a gift given with a tight-lipped smile by his father for his birthday that winter. Rodrigue never forgot the accident that took Glenn from them, but he’d tried to ease Felix’s fear of cars; he’d taken him driving on the backroads behind Felix’s house, he’d signed him up for lessons, he’d soothed Felix’s fears that accidents like the one that took Glenn were uncommon._

_Had he known it was a murder? Had he ever suspected?_

_But Felix hadn’t been thinking about that. He’d been thinking about how much space Dimitri took up in the car. How much he was still caught up in the feelings he’d spent years trying to deny._

_And then. The crash. The screeching tires and the hot smell of asphalt and the sheer terror, Dimitri screaming and now it was happening again, again---_

\--the van rolling and falling down an embankment, Felix thrown to his side and the back doors of the van were flung open and there was Dimitri, standing like some avenging angel with an expression on his face that Felix can’t place but is certain he never wants to see again. 

Behind him there are two people, one with snow-white hair and a pair of raised pistols. Another figure in a motorcycle jacket, whistling sharply and holding out his arm. 

“What the fuck,” Felix says, scrambling toward Dimitri. “What. Who. How did --” 

He doesn’t get anything else out before Dimitri hauls him close. His big body is shaking as hard as Felix’s, and he grabs him by the face and kisses him so hard his teeth knock against Felix’s own. It’s objectively a terrible kiss. But it might be the best one of Felix’s entire life. He wants to fall into it and never come back out again. 

But first. 

He makes a sound and pushes at Dimitri’s shoulder. When that does exactly nothing, he bites Dimitri’s lip. That gets a moan and a better kiss, but eventually Felix manages to wriggle enough that Dimitri pulls away and stares at him with a flushed face and one bright, wet, glittering eye. 

“I love you,” Felix says, all in a rush. “So fucking much. Get me _out of this van_.” 

Dimitri’s smile is shaky, but he swings Felix out of the van and immediately goes to finish untying his hands. 

Felix opens his mouth to - ask how this happened, again, or maybe what that thing was that flew into the driver’s side window, or who brought the _guns_ , but then he sees the man who’d whistled and it was -- Claude, the owner of the Golden Deer Carnival, the one with the, the creature -- take the woman, Dimitri’s childhood first-love from that bar, and lift her, kissing her as passionately as Dimitri just kissed Felix. 

“Oh,” Felix says, watching as Edelgard hits Claude on the arm but continues to kiss him. “I. Huh.” 

“Not a ferret in a costume, it turns out,” Dimitri says. 

“Shut up,” Felix says, immediately. “How did you --” 

Dimitri holds up the car keys. He smiles, so achingly sweet that Felix’s eyes burn hot. “I drove,” he says, simply. 

“You hate driving,” Felix says, numbly. His face is wet. Sweat. Sure. 

“Yes,” Dimitri says. “But it turns out, Felix, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.” 

“This is very touching,” Edelgard drawls. “Actually, no, it’s sort of revolting. But we need to get going. Dimitri can explain in the car. Claude, get your hand off my ass.” 

“Sorry,” Claude says, not sounding very sorry at all. “I can’t help it. Do you know how hot you looked?” 

“Yes,” Edelgard says, and tosses her hair. Felix decides he might, kind of, be a little in love with her, too. “Now, seriously, get in the car.” She makes toward the side of the van, her mouth set. “And I’ll make sure we’re not going to be followed.” 

Claude strolls by, and Felix sees a tiny pair of bright gold eyes peeking out of his jacket, the flutter of something like wings, and decides to ignore it just as he ignores the gunshot that follows, loud in the sudden quiet. 

“Come on,” Dimitri says. “Let’s go.” 

***

“So, let me get this straight,” Felix says, eyes on the road, as he follows behind the motorcycle ahead of them. “Edelgard stole my wallet instead of just. Telling you she knew about Cornelia, and asking if she could help?” 

“I think she had to make sure you weren’t in on it,” Dimitri says, handing him another bottle of water. “Felix, you should perhaps not go so fast, this car isn’t ours.” 

Felix is both charmed and exasperated that Dimitri, after driving like a demon out of hell to rescue him, has gone back to fussing like an old man on a Sunday drive about the car that is, objectively, the least of their worries. 

“It’s fine. And Claude?” 

“The Golden Deer crime family,” he says, as if that’s any kind of answer. 

“There’s. Organized crime involved in road-side carnivals?” Felix considers this. “I suppose it makes sense. No one can win those games.”

“I think it’s more a way to gather information, but, yes.” Dimitri chuckles. “He’s rather enamored of El. It’s sweet. And the creature --” 

“No,” says Felix. 

Dimitri grins at him. It’s only a little wild, which is understandable because they aren’t exactly out of danger and are, in fact, heading into the proverbial lion’s den. “Did you know, the place we stopped? With the feuding medieval themes?” 

“It was literally just yesterday,” Felix says. “And I don’t think I’m ever going to forget that bed.” 

Dimitri chuckles. “That’s also owned by a former crime boss.” 

“The guy with the scar?” 

“Surprisingly, no. The woman. It’s a long story, or so I’m told. But she’s a friend, too.” Dimitri leans back in the seat. “I was so afraid when they took you.” 

“Yeah.” Felix breathes out, slow and only a little shaky. He isn’t going to forget that threat, the sick anticipation of waiting for a notification sound that never came. He’s keeping his cell phone on silent for the rest of his life, probably. Just vibrate. That’ll be fine. “So, what are we going to do? Go in guns blazing?” 

“Well. I’m certainly not. I was going to call the police, but, ah.” Dimitri colors. “El laughed when I suggested that, and then there was. A lecture, about the police and how they’re useless. So I assume the guns will be blazing but I’ve been forbidden from any part of it.” 

“Thank the Goddess,” Felix says, relieved. “I’m not cut out for this.” 

“You’ve been wonderful,” Dimitri says, taking his hand, loyal as ever. “But I would like, I think, to have a normal vacation.” He thinks about it. “We could go back to the theme motel, if you wanted.” 

“Sure,” Felix says. “But we’re skipping the haunted dolls this time. And no more clowns. _And that thing is a puppet_. Not a ferret, or. Anything else.” 

“Agreed,” Dimitri says, and turns on the radio. 

_Total Eclipse of the Heart_ starts to play. The relief that Felix is here, banged up but alive and with an also-alive, banged up but safe Dimitri, is almost too much. He doesn’t pretend that he’s not singing along this time, but he does pretend he’s not crying. 

It’s been a _day._

***

The Blaiddyd home is nearly as old as Felix’s, built in the old style when the city was just a budding township with delusions of grandeur. It’s been repaired and refurbished over the years, but there’s still a little plaque on the front gate that declares it an Official Historic Site, and the garden out front is kept pristine as always, just in case any tourists walk by and want to squint at the sign next door. Edelgard and Claude park their bike on the street, and Felix parks in the empty driveway. The corvette is a little worse for wear, with bullet holes in the windshield and cracks running up the paint, and Dimitri can’t help the surge of fellow feeling as the engine wheezes to a halt.

Felix looks up at the empty house and freezes. There’s a man on the front porch. He rocks gently on the wooden swinging chair, and as he does, moonlight slides over the ridges of the sword in his lap. He turns an empty, glassy-eyed gaze to Dimitri, and Dimitri shivers.

“It’s the HR manager,” Dimitri whispers. “From the carnival.”

“Oh, good,” Claude says, striding through the front gate as though he belongs there. His creature whistles from the warmth of his leather jacket, and Dimitri can just see the white gleam of a tail curled around his waist. “Byleth. You and Jeritza cased the house?”

“It’s empty,” Byleth says, which isn’t _exactly_ comforting. He nods at Edelgard. “Your Bernie is on the roof.”

“The fuck,” Felix whispers, and they both look up to see a small, dark shape crouching on the roof like a tiny gargoyle in a hoodie. Felix climbs out of the car, and Dimitri follows, drawn to the house as though reeled in by a line.

Edelgard watches them, hands on her hips, and steps aside as Dimitri makes it to the porch. The sword on Byleth’s lap looks almost segmented, and there’s something familiar about it that Dimitri can’t quite place. 

“You’ll be guarded tonight,” Edelgard says, as Felix stares blankly at the sword. “We’ll let you know when it’s over. And when it is…” She looks from Dimitri to Felix, brows lowered. “It’s over. Whatever shit you pulled to get here, that’s just going to be chalked up to in-fighting with the Fodlan crime syndicates, you understand? You two, you were just bystanders, people who got caught up in the crossfire.”

“Right,” Felix says.

“Will you be alright?” Dimitri asks. Edelgard doesn’t smile, but her eyes soften a little, and she takes Dimitri’s face in both hands.

“Get some sleep,” she says. “We’ll be back to check in on you in the morning. Lean over, Dimitri, there’s too much of you.”

Dimitri obediently bends his head, and Edelgard stands on tiptoes to kiss his brow.

Then she whirls on one heel, marching off towards the bike with her jacket flung open and her hair swinging at her back. Claude sighs and stares after her for a moment.

“Yeah,” he says, so soft he could almost be talking to himself. “Tonight’s gonna be _amazing._ ”

Dimitri, Felix, and the silent HR manager watch the two of them walk through the Blaiddyd garden and out to the street, where they climb onto the motorcycle. Then Dimitri turns away, and numbly, as though guided by an unseen hand, opens the door to his old home.

There are lights on in all the rooms, warm and inviting, and the doors are open to reveal living rooms, bedrooms, the carpeted stair. Dimitri stands in the foyer for a moment as Felix closes the door, and shakes himself off like a labrador emerging from a pool. He can still feel the tension in his hands, the clench of his jaw, the dull, leaden terror of watching the van careen off the side of the road. The feel of the wheel under his hands.

“I think,” he says, swaying on his feet, “that I may be sick.”

He almost doesn’t make it to the second floor bathroom. He’s shaking again, violent tremors that run from his fingers to his calves, and as he retches miserably over the toilet, he hears footsteps on the tile, feels the warm touch of Felix’s hands on his brow. Felix holds back his hair, and if Dimitri does cry a little, ugly, wet tears that cloud his eye and make the world go hazy and indistinct, Felix doesn’t mention it. He just stands there until it’s over, clumsily petting Dimitri’s hair, and when Dimitri turns his reddened, tear-stained face to the light, Felix smiles.

“And somehow you still love me,” Dimitri says.

“Yeah,” Felix says. “Imagine that.”

They run a bath in the master bathroom, where the tub can easily fit three people and then some, and Dimitri drags the old TV in from his childhood bedroom. It’s an ancient thing, bought only so Dimitri could play the old games Glenn always talked about, and when they turn it on and check the VHS deck, they find there’s already a tape inside. It’s an old TV show about paranormal investigators, and Dimitri leans back in the bath, his tongue still tasting a little like mouthwash, and pulls Felix against his chest.

“Thank you,” Dimitri says, pressing his lips to the back of Felix’s neck. Felix turns in the bath, his legs sliding over Dimitri’s, and pushes back his hair to look at him properly.

“For what?” 

Dimitri stares at him. He can’t begin to explain what it means, to have Felix here, in his lap, safe and alive and maybe a little bruised. To know that he’d fought for him, tried to keep them safe, stuck by him when any sensible person would have called the cops and got a ride back home. To have kissed him, finally, to know the taste of him, the way _I love you_ feels breathed out against his skin.

“For driving me home,” Dimitri says, at last.

Felix groans and kisses him, hands fisted in his hair. “I can’t believe you.”

Dimitri smiles into the kiss and rolls over with Felix in his arms, startling a laugh out of him that echoes in his ears and rings throughout the empty house, light and free and perfect.

***

Edelgard and Claude return in the morning, just after Dimitri leaves a plate of slice-and-bake rolls on the balcony for the mysterious Bernie, who waits until Dimitri has left to squirrel them away. Edelgard looks worn to the bone but pleased as a cat in a birdhouse, and Claude is holding his winged lizard-ferret-creature in his arms like a baby. Both of them are smudged with soot, and just a few feet behind them, Rodrigue Fraldarius, just as soot-streaked and bruised along one cheek, limps onto the porch.

“Dad.” Felix lurches past Dimitri and takes Rodrigue by the arm. Rodrigue holds his face for a moment, then wrenches him into a tight embrace.

“Funny, what you can find in a boring old office building uptown,” Claude says. “Like, I don’t know. Files. Guns. Dads.”

“Lighter fluid,” Edelgard says, dryly.

“Yeah, they sure build them flammable, these days,” Claude says, as Rodrigue nearly stumbles, making both him and Felix bump into the wall.

“Okay, Dad, I’m fine,” Felix says, pulling free with the acute embarrassment of a man whose father loves him. 

“What did you boys get yourselves into?” Rodrigue asks. He looks at Dimitri, pulls him into his own crushing hug. “When I thought what they must have done to you—“

“Nothing happened,” Edelgard says. She smiles, lips curling back over her teeth. “Your boys just ran out of gas on the road, and maybe they got a little help on the way home.”

“Sure,” Claude says. Edelgard whistles, and a girl in a purple hoodie jumps down from the porch roof, scattering flowers. Rodrigue jumps, and Felix lunges for Dimitri, grabbing at his shirt.

“We probably won’t be seeing you,” Edelgard says, with a toss of her hair and a smile that says otherwise. She grabs Claude by the collar and stalks off through the garden, trailing the scent of smoke and blood.

They stand there for a while, just staring, as they are left alone on the front porch with Felix’s bewildered, shaken dad between them.

“Son,” Rodrigue says, after the exhaust has cleared and the street lies empty. “I believe I may require something of an explanation.”

Felix laughs, and Dimitri lays a comforting hand on Rodrigue’s back, guiding him towards the open front door.

“How long do you have?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Road trip mix tape track six: Total Eclipse of the Heart, by Bonnie Tyler


	7. Sothis' Peanut Gallery (The Return)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix and Dimitri perform a daring rescue.

Felix puts the car in park, turns to Dimitri and says, “You remember the plan, right?”

Dimitri nods, unbuckling his seatbelt. “Of course. I still think we should simply inquire as to the price of the, ah, item.” He glances around, like someone might materialize out of thin air and arrest them simply for speaking vaguely about their upcoming heist.

“Dimitri. It says it’s not for sale.”

“But to just. Walk in there and _steal_ it, Felix.” Dimitri looks...not upset, but vaguely bothered. “I thought we left criminal behavior behind us.”

Felix rolls his eyes. “Dimitri. We weren’t criminals. The worst thing we did was steal a car from someone who tried to murder us, and then borrow it from, uh, people were going to help us anyway.”

“Hmm. Still, I would prefer to do this the correct way. That is, of course, if the item is still there. It might have been relocated, or perhaps. It passed along to wherever they, ah, go.”

Felix bangs his head against the steering wheel. “I don’t know why I love you, sometimes. If it’s because you’re a huge dork, or in spite of it.”

“Both, probably,” Dimitri says, and takes his hand. “Felix, I think this is very gallant of you, you realize. I am just not quite comfortable with the theft aspect. I could use my size, be imposing, try and encourage the sale of the item that way, perhaps?”

“Sure,” Felix says, squeezing Dimitri’s hand. “You could do that. If I believed for a second you were capable of it. Look. This is stupid. Just go in, buy something, ask a dumb question and stall until you feel your phone vibrate. Then walk, _do not run_ , out of the gas station and get in the car. Then we’re done.”

“Yes.” Dimitri smiles. “We really are doing the right thing. I know it will be better off in our possession.”

Felix sighs. He’s so ridiculous. “Right. Let’s do this.” He leans over and kisses Dimitri. “Remember. If I get caught, just pretend you don’t know me and call El. Then we’ll meet up at the carnival, after it’s all sorted.”

“She’ll laugh, Felix. If I have to call her.”

“Yeah, probably. But she’ll help. She did give us the car,” Felix reminds him.

“She _lent_ us the car, we do have to give it back.” Dimitri pats the console. “I’m rather glad it wasn’t Ferdinand’s, again. I have to say, while I appreciate what that vehicle did for us, I wasn’t quite sure I was ready to see it again.”

“Me, neither,” says Felix. Ferdinand, the owner of the corvette they “borrowed” for the last harrowing leg of their trip home, was something of a friend, now. As much as you could be friends with members of the criminal underworld. And with someone whose car you stole and then smashed their window.

Dimitri paid to have it repaired, detailed, waxed and discretely updated the sound system before returning the keys to Edelgard’s associate, who tried to be huffy about it until he saw how legitimately apologetic Dimitri had been about the “necessity of absconding with your vehicle.”

“All right,” Felix says, turning off the car engine. “Let’s do this.”

The little playground is still there, the thin mulch covering the concrete, the swings rusted, the dinosaur slide looking sad and sun-bleached. It’s early morning and only a few cars getting gas, one of which pulls away immediately. The other person is leaning against their car, checking their phone. They don’t even glance up as Felix and Dimitri pass. Good.

The inside of Sothis’ Peanut Gallery looks the same as it did before. The bushel of boiled peanuts, the sad oranges, the racks of tacky souvenirs. Felix and Dimitri don’t speak as they make their way through the store, but Felix does notice Dimitri picking up a package of sugared lemon candy _and_ a bag of peanuts, and has to duck his head to hide a fond smile.

It’s hard to remember that a few months ago they were in this same store, under these same fluorescent lights. Riding the fear and adrenaline of the attack and trying desperately to make sense of it. All those feelings, locked up tight behind a dam, a hairline crack just waiting to burst.

Felix is glad that it’s all over. That the dam broke. And this time, he’s going to get to eat those fucking boiled peanuts.

He can see Dimitri putting the items on the counter, asking the clerk something, pointing to the cigarettes. Getting Felix his cloves, even if he won’t let Felix smoke in the car (“It isn’t ours, Felix!”) and will give him that look, the sad puppy one, if Felix tries it outside where Dimitri can see.

He turns his attention to the reason why they’re here; a heist. A liberation.

The baby gator is still in its tank. The heat lamp appears to have dimmed somewhat, or else maybe part of it has burnt out, but either way, there it is. The dead crickets, the gum wrappers. There are more gum wrappers, in fact. A Starburst wrapper. Yellow. Who the fuck eats the yellow ones? Somehow this is the worst of all.

“Right,” Felix mutters. “You don’t belong here. Let’s go.” He unzips his messenger bag, and after a quick glance around, reaches in the small, dirty enclosure. The website said to take its head and tail at the same time, so he does, lifting it quickly up and out of the tank and shoving it in his bag. “Sorry,” Felix says to it, feeling silly. Dimitri is rubbing off on him, maybe.

He shuts the bag and heads for the door, his heart racing. On the way out, he sees the phone in the back, the one where he called his dad. But he doesn’t linger, just pulls the hood of his zippered jacked up and heads out into the parking lot. His bag is wriggling.

“There’s a nice, clean, candy-free tank just waiting for you,” Felix mutters, patting idly at the top of the bag. He feels a wild thrill of euphoria when he slides into the driver’s seat of their on-loan-from-a-gangster car and turns around to deposit his ill-gotten gator in the tank in the back. He -- barely -- resists apologizing, again, when the creature tumbles out into the tank. Felix closes the top and smiles. It’s all set up with a nice heat-lamp, though it’s not plugged in yet, and plenty of fresh, _live_ crickets, cool water, a rock, some plants, and even a little cave to hide in.

He turns and texts Dimitri, then switches the car on, pulls up in front of the gas station, and laughs as Dimitri hurries out with the guiltiest look on his face, as if he just robbed the safe instead of distracted a clerk while Felix absconded with a poorly-treated reptile.

Dimitri slides into the passenger seat. “Felix, go!”

“What? Why, did he suspect something?”

“No, but we shouldn’t linger!” Dimitri beams at him, then twists around. “Hello, little one. We’re saving you. Ah. Look at him, Felix. He’s eating a cricket!”

“Great,” Felix says, and turns the car toward the highway. Once they’re out and no one comes racing after them, he turns to Dimitri and smiles. “We did it.”

“You know, I think perhaps I see why some people are drawn to the thrill of a crime,” Dimitri says, opening the bag of lemon candy. He pops one in his mouth, opens the bag of boiled peanuts, and slides it over to Felix. “That was quite exhilarating! Also very satisfying to save that poor creature.”

“Dimitri, don’t get any ideas,” says Felix. The peanuts aren’t that great. The lemon candy is better. “Let’s leave the criminal enterprises to the pros.”

“Ah,” Dimitri says. “Well, yes, but if there are any other mistreated reptiles being kept in dilapidated conditions in gas stations around Fodlan, we could make it a point to. Rescue them.”

Felix cannot imagine how common it is to keep baby alligators in gas stations, but it seems easier just to agree. “Sure. Sounds good.”

They put on the playlist, one that Dimitri specifically made for their adventure. _Born to Run_ starts playing, and Felix and Dimitri sing along as they drive toward their destination; a carnival sprung up overnight in some field near a parking lot, where a man waits with his devil’s smile and his fondness for wild, untamed creatures.

 _Together, we can break this trap, we’ll run ‘til we drop and baby, we’ll never look back,_ they sing, and smile at each other while the road stretches out before them, open and waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 7 Road Trip Mix song: Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen 
> 
> That's the end! Thanks again for reading!


End file.
